Frumentum Ex Spatio
by Mardy Lass
Summary: Mulder and Scully are sent to Louisiana to help a local agent investigate alleged animal attacks. He wants proof, she wants everyone to live to tell the tale, and the local agent wants… Ah, that'd be telling. Flashlights, government-issue Glocks, outdoorsy action, bodily damage, hurt\comfort and some MSR\Sculder for those into gratuitous fanservice. Rated T for dead people.
1. Two to Beam Down

**ONE**

 **Two to Beam Down**

.

 _Author's Note:_

 _This is set between 7x21 'Je Souhaite' and 7x22 'Requiem'. Spoilery references are made to pretty much the first seven seasons._

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* * *

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DeSOTO PARISH, LOUISIANA

June 12th, 2000

4:57pm

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"They break ground tomorrow and not before," he grumped, surveying the large plant machinery parked haphazardly around the wasteland.

The woman to his left, her yellow hard hat slightly askew and her official looking VISITOR badge flapping in the soft breeze, pulled a thick notebook out of her messenger bag and flipped through to a page covered in hand-written notes. "But you've ruled they could start tonight. I'm pretty sure that's what all the works stuff is here for."

"I said they could prepare tonight. I won't be ready for them to break ground until tomorrow."

"Yes, Judge Lanoux. I'll remind the construction company to wait."

"They can get on and do whatever prep they want, but if they physically break ground before I'm ready, I'll withdraw my ruling and they can start their application all over again."

"Yes, Judge Lanoux. Understood, Judge Lanoux," she rattled off.

He turned to watch her slot her notebook back into an inside pocket of the bag, shaking his head. "When's the last time you had a day off, Sylvie?"

"I took lunch," she said to herself, even as she fished around inside for something else.

Lanoux turned back to his car. "We're done here." He walked back to the rear door and waited, his hands in his pockets.

Sylvie turned, saw him standing by the car, and jumped. She held her hard hat to her head and hurried over through the uneven grass to whisk the door open for him. He climbed in and she closed it softly before going round the car and in through the driver's door. She pulled her hat off and ran a hand through her blond hair before putting her seat belt on. "Back to the office, sir?"

"No. Take me home, Sylvie. This place gives me the creeps."

She flicked her gaze over his imposing stature, his short hair, his stocky build. "Yes, Judge Lanoux." She turned over the engine and pulled away, bouncing steadily over the grassland before finding the tarmac of a side road. Finding the road as empty as the field, she pulled out and headed for the lights of civilisation far ahead of them.

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* * *

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7:32pm

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The excavator rolled over the rough ground. It lurched to a stop as someone waved their arms and shouted. Danny slammed on the brakes and yanked the excavator into the equivalent of Park. He put a hand to the edge of the windscreen and leant his head out into the night air. "What?"

The woman in the high-vis jacket and matching hard hat stomped up to the caterpillar tread by his boot. "We have to wait for the judge to see this."

"Aw the judge can bite me," Danny scoffed. "He ain't gonna know if we start tonight or tomorrow morning, Shirley."

The woman glowered at him. "If you say so, chief. On your head be it."

"Don't go getting hysterical now," Danny grinned.

Shirley folded her arms. "Well go on then - start digging. I look forward to seeing you serve a few weeks in jail for goin' against a court order."

"Will you relax!" he grinned. "What's the worst that could happen?"

He lurched the digger into gear and lowered the giant, toothed scoop. It bit into the ground and ripped it up with ease. Shirley backed up, shaking her head. Then she started back to the wooden longhut with the maps inside.

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* * *

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June 13th, 2000

8:42am

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The long black car swung up to the waste ground, coming to an abrupt stop in more or less the same tyre treads as the afternoon before. Sylvie whisked out of the driver's seat and rushed round to the rear passenger door, opening it up. Judge Lanoux climbed out and surveyed the site. He gasped and ran to the large digger, currently on its side, the engine well and truly dead.

As was the driver. Lanoux grasped the edge of the windscreen in horror as he stared at what was left of Danny Petrus.

Lanoux staggered back a few steps. He bumped into Sylvie. Whirling half out of panic and half out of urgency, he grabbed her upper arms and held her still.

"Sir?" she asked, confused. "What's happened here?"

"Don't look," he warned.

Her eyes went wide. She made herself turn away. Her first instinct was to run for the longhut, and the phone inside.

She made it to the door. It swung open. As she hurried toward the dull red telephone hung on the wall her shoe caught on something. She looked down at the dead woman on the floor.

She screamed.

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* * *

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

June 14th, 2000

9:16am

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"How about this one?" Scully asked. Her eyes were glued to the sheet of paper as she pulled it out of the mess on the floor. She skim-read it as she heard shuffling from under the wooden desk.

"What's it say?"

"Uh… _Ameranthropoides loysi_."

"Hoaxes box."

"Sure?" she asked, getting to her feet and continuing to read. "It says here—"

"Confirmed a hoax in 1922."

"If you say so, Mulder." She turned and walked to the four large cardboard boxes by the open door to the office. She dropped it in the first one. "Shouldn't you be cataloguing these by name, or something?"

"This is easier."

"What if one of your hoaxes turns out to be a real animal after all?" she asked.

There was a pause from under the desk. "I'm flattered that you think _I_ could perpetrate so many hoaxes on so many continents, some of which were designated as such before I was born, Scully. However, I'm more blown away by your admission that you think it's possible that something everyone considers a hoax could later be proven true and real, especially something as easily debunked as a spider monkey."

She smiled and went back to the scattered papers on the floor. "Galileo was proven right eventually."

"So you're saying it's possible _I'll_ be proven right one day."

"It's not impossible."

"Wow. If I wasn't already lying on the floor, I might have fainted."

"Well there you go - still keeping you guessing."

"Speaking of - you got caesar salad and a blueberry and raspberry smoothie."

"What?" She picked up another sheet, reading the title.

"Lunch. I took the liberty of ordering from the canteen early - they run out of the good stuff first."

"I'm flattered you thought about my lunch before I'd even got in this morning," she scoffed. "But I'm more blown away by the fact that you actually consider what I eat to be the 'good stuff', compared to what you eat."

"No, I ordered _my_ lunch first - but I thought while I was there I'd take a stab at guessing what you'd go for."

She shook her head. "Then I'm amazed you thought of me over your 'work'," she muttered, "what with you suddenly wanting to re-organise every file you have containing cryptids."

"What?"

"I said I'm still wondering why you suddenly wanted to re-organise every file you have containing cryptids," she said, much louder.

"The fact that this will take us all day, is vital routine government business and as such overrides everything else, makes no nevermind to you, Scully?"

"All day? But we've got the monthly figures briefing at ten, and we have to attend the new safety seminar at two."

"As I said, this takes precedence." He paused. "You're welcome."

She stood up and carried two pages to the box marked 'hoax'. "Then thank you. One more safety seminar asking if I know how many inline safeties are on my issued Glock and I'll punch someone." She looked down at a box. "Nessie and the Ogopogo - going in," she announced.

"Woah - which one?"

"Well hoaxes, obviously."

"No no no - unconfirmed true."

"What?"

"Until someone comes forward and waves their hands in the air saying 'I'm responsible for all the media and evidence surrounding these cases' they go in the unconfirmed true box."

Her mouth squirrelled to one side. She looked across the office at the black shoes sticking out beyond the right-hand edge of the desk. "Mulder, what _are_ you doing? Installing a secret drawer?"

"Nothing so clandestine. The bottom drawer is stuck."

"Then call Maintenance."

"I can't call Maintenance."

"Afraid they'll laugh in your manly face for failing to do a manly job like freeing a drawer from a runner?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"They're out all day at their own safety seminar."

"Oh," she said, her face dropping.

"That and… they'll laugh in my manly face for failing to do a manly job like freeing a drawer from a runner."

She put the two sheets in the box marked 'Unconfirmed True' and wandered over. Pulling off her suit jacket and leaving it on the desk, she crouched down to look under. She found Mulder sprawled on his back, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the end of his loosened tie tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt. He had both hands in the back of the drawer carriage unit immediately above his head. "How can it be stuck?" she asked. "Wait - if this is somehow connected to your stash of porn tapes, I don't want to know."

"I don't have a stash of porn tapes any more," he snorted.

"Really?"

"Really." He shifted his head to look at her. "They're DVDs now."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright, out of the way, manly man. Let me have a look."

He made his hands fall but before he could shuffle out, she had dropped to her front and squirmed in as if elbowing her way through mud, army training style. She poked her head round the rear of the unit and then drew back to push her hand in instead. "What is this… stuck in the runner?" she breathed to herself. She paused as she had the distinct feeling she was being watched. Her eyes slid to the right to find Mulder grinning at her. "What?"

"I always suspected you were more manly than me anyway."

"Shut up," she smiled. Her fingers worked away and then she raised her eyebrows. "Ok… push the drawer in very slowly."

"Aye aye cap'n." He kept flat on the floor but his left hand went under the unit to allow his elbow to bend up the front. He slid the open drawer back toward him.

"There, see?" she said with a smug smile.

"You've just got smaller fingers," he said defensively.

She jumped. "Ow! Stop!"

"Are you ok?"

"My finger's caught between the drawer and the sidewall."

"Ok hang on."

The drawer moved out again. "Mulder! Stop! That's making it _worse_."

They heard a sharp wooden banging and paused. They looked at each other. "Was that you?" he asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. Pull the drawer out."

"Are you sure you want me to—"

"Pull it out, Mulder!" she cried. "Pull it out now!" The drawer moved. "No! Wait! Stop!" she gasped. "Push it in - _carefully!_ "

"Agents?" came a very unimpressed voice. "Is this a bad time?"

Mulder and Scully's eyes threw their reactions at each other. Annoyance went one way, haplessness the other.

"Don't go anywhere," he said. She slapped at his shoulder as he pushed himself out and got to his knees to pop his head over the desk. "Hello?" he asked. "Oh. Good morning."

Assistant Director Skinner was standing in the doorway, his hands on his hips in what could only be described as exasperation. "And what is this?"

"We're just - uh - filing," Mulder said. He resisted the urge to let his eyes go to the scattered papers all over the floor.

"Riiiiiiiight," Skinner said sarcastically.

"Mulder, get back here right now and get me out of this thing, or so help me I will set fire to your precious files," came an irritated voice from under the desk.

Skinner's eyebrows raised. "If you can tear yourself away, I need to see you both in my office."

"Something urgent?" Mulder asked.

"Take a wild guess."

Mulder nodded. "We'll be five minutes." He leant back and looked under the desk. "Five minutes?"

"Speak for yourself," Scully grumped. "I might need longer."

Mulder looked back over the desk.

Skinner was already halfway out of the door. "Whatever you're doing - and I don't want to know what that might be - do it faster." He whisked out of the exit.

Mulder put his hands on his hips and frowned at the empty space. Until he felt a knee thump into his. "Ow!"

"Then help me get free."

"Alright, just calm down."

"You and your damn drawers. You owe me more than lunch for this, Mulder."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Ok, ready? Wait - how do you want it, Scully? In or out?"

.

* * *

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9:38am

.

Skinner looked up from the long meeting table at the sound of heavy knocking. "Come in," he called.

The door opened and Mulder poked his head around. "You wanted to see us, sir?"

"Have a seat, agents," he intoned.

Mulder went in, leaving the door open for Scully. She closed it behind herself and followed Mulder to the table. She was already seated before he pulled the chair out next to her, getting comfortable in a way that suggested he was no more interested in the impromptu meeting than he was the weather outside.

"Why was your phone off the hook, Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked directly.

Mulder's mouth opened. Scully turned to look at him in mild surprise. Mulder shrugged. "I didn't realise it was, sir. I must have knocked it trying to fix my drawer."

"Fix your drawer," Skinner echoed with absolute and condemning judgement. "Is that how you fill your days when you should be attending important meetings and safety seminars?"

Scully cleared her throat. "We were cataloguing, sir. It is pretty high on our given list of priorities."

Skinner eyed her for a long moment. "Cataloguing what, exactly?"

"X Files, sir," she said. "Long overdue."

"Sir, why have we been called here?" Mulder asked.

Skinner sat forward. "This," he said, tossing a brown file in front of Scully. She opened it up and began to read. "Two nights ago two construction workers were killed in Mansfield, DeSoto Parish, in Louisiana. They were starting work on wasteland, about to turn it into a couple of new apartment blocks."

"And why is that a matter for the FBI?" Mulder asked.

"Scully?" Skinner prompted.

She scrutinised the photographs in the file. "The driver of the excavator, one… Daniel Petrus… was found on his back, looking like his limbs had been pinned down by something heavy and/or sharp. Deep lacerations from… him trying to fight free."

Mulder gave the barest sniff. "What killed him?"

"Whatever it was took out his entire intestinal tract and stomach," she mused.

"Like a surgeon?"

"Like… it was torn away." She looked up. "Mulder, this may be an animal attack."

"Then hand it to Fish and Wildlife," he shrugged. "I don't see why we're here, sir," he added to Skinner.

Skinner drew himself up in his chair, lacing his hands and leaning them on the table. "The parish sheriff's office is denying it's a political crime, due to the ground they were using, but locals are not listening. Now we have a branch office down there but they're not equipped to deal with this. I want you two to head down there and solve this thing yesterday."

Mulder put his elbow on the table and lifted his index finger. "Please sir, may I be excused? My time machine is broken."

Skinner glared at him so hard it was a wonder his own glasses didn't shatter. Mulder cleared his throat and took his elbow off the desk.

"I think what Agent Mulder means to ask is why this particular case is being given to us, sir," Scully put in. "There are plenty of agents in the bureau who could do a very thorough—"

"A local judge - a pillar of the community down there - had just cleared some land to be redeveloped," Skinner interrupted. "There was a lot of debate over the decision to let them build on it, but what with the ridiculous amount of damage still not cleared up after the last hurricane, it was felt that it was time to start building residences, and fast." He paused. "What we need here are two experienced agents who understand how dangerous sensitive information can be in the wrong hands. What I _want_ is for you two to pursue this murder case in your own discreet ways. Like I said, we need this solved and the guilty party arrested as soon as possible. I figure the best way to do that is to let you two loose and see what you turn up from two different angles."

"When do we leave?" Mulder asked.

Skinner looked at Scully. "Do you have any further questions?"

"Do we have full access to bureau support, sir?" she asked.

"Anything you need. I'll have copies of everything we've got so far ready for you at the airport. You can read up on the plane. All our labs and departments are on the phone if you need them."

"We'll be ready, sir," she nodded.

"Then go. Catch me a murderer before this goes from headline of the day to riot of the year."

"Understood, sir," she said. The agents stood and filed out.

Skinner watched them leave. He was unsurprised to see Mulder was the last one, shutting the door behind him. He got up and went straight back to his own desk. He sat, took off his glasses, and wiped his hands over his face. Slowly.

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* * *

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DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, WASHINGTON D.C.

1:35pm (Eastern time)

.

"I'm just saying, winding Skinner up does not accomplish anything," Scully said as they walked through the airport.

"I think it's interesting that he's put _us_ on the case. It's a normal murder; anyone could go down there and do this."

"You heard him - he wants us to take care of it quickly."

"Yeah - I heard him say he wants to let us loose and see what we turn up." He paused. "I think _he_ thinks it's an X File."

"I wonder what this branch office will be like," she mused.

"Well he said it wasn't equipped for this - maybe it's an office in the basement with no power, crappy posters on the walls and pencils stuck in the ceiling."

She glanced up at him. He just ambled toward the boarding gate as if he had all the time in the world. She frowned. "Mulder, whoever we meet there, be nice to them. It's just a field office - they're not there to baffle you with conspiracies. And don't tell them what you think _really_ murdered those construction workers."

"What _do_ I think really murdered those construction workers?" he asked with a sly smile.

"Knowing you? It could be the Jersey Devil."

"Don't be ridiculous Scully," he grinned. "It's never been seen in Louisiana."

"Get on the plane, Mulder."

"Yes, Scully."

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* * *

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DeSOTO PARISH, LOUISIANA

4:28pm (Central time)

.

Agent McGivers put down her pen, closing the report cover slowly. She ran her hand over the cover, pressing the sheets of paper down as she savoured the feel of the hard surface.

The phone on the desk blared with an abrupt demand for attention. She picked up the receiver. "DeSoto Branch, Louisiana - this is Agent McGivers," she said immediately. "Yes, sir. Two agents, sir?" She listened for a long moment. "Oh! _They're_ coming here? It's really them?" Her mouth hung open until something said down the line made it snap shut in alarm. She swallowed. "Yes sir, I'll deal with them myself." She looked at her watch quickly. "Everything will be ready, sir." She put the phone receiver back in its cradle and sat back in her chair.

For a few minutes her eyes saw nothing. Then she let her head tilt as she considered the office, with its rows and rows of shelves, the immaculate filing, the paper-protective air-con. She got up, straightened out her regulation pencil skirt, and went to a set of drawers by the door. Opening it up revealed a tidy stack of unused brown report books, still in the plastic wrapping. She slipped one out and smiled at the thought of the unspoilt pages inside. Knocking the drawer shut with her hip, she walked back to her desk, sat primly, and pulled the chair back up to the edge of the table. She studied the three pens in her desk tidy very carefully until she chose the one with the most ink. Then she pulled the new report book toward her, and in a graceful, flowing hand, wrote ' _Experiment 379_ ' on the cover.

She flipped it open, paused to bend down and breathe in the scent of new paper, and then raised the pen.

"A new day, a new case," she breathed. "Agent… Dana… Scully," she whispered to herself as she wrote. "And… the… partner, Agent… Fox… Mulder." She put the pen down and admired her handiwork. Then she slapped her hands together and squealed very softly. "I've been waiting for this for _such_ a long time," she gushed.

And then her smile died a tragic, lonely death, as she realised just what their arrival would herald.

.

* * *

 _I've wanted to write one of these for 20 years... Here we go!_


	2. First Contact

**TWO**

 **First Contact**

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SOMEWHERE OVER THE EAST COAST, USA

3:45pm (Eastern time)

.

"A wolf," Scully mused.

"Are we talking 'big bad' or 'were'?" Mulder muttered.

Scully turned slightly in her airline seat to appraise him. He had his nose in the report, peering at the photographs. "Do we agree it was an animal attack?"

"It was big," he said. "If it pinned down this man and disemboweled him, and then did the same to… Shirley Duchamp in the site office… It must have been bigger than a man."

"You know, they do have red wolves in Louisiana."

" _Canis rufus_ only has a typical bite width of two point five centimetres," Mulder said. "In the sheriff's report it speculates on something like 'a Louisiana black bear' - their bite radius is much bigger. And red wolves are opportunistic - mostly birds and smaller mammals. They don't go looking for bright lights and noise so they can chow down on able-bodied men and women probably five times their body weight."

"They're also pretty rare," Scully said. "They're on the 'imperilled' list for Louisiana. That might make them more desperate."

"Desperate enough to wait around one particular patch of ground, and strike only there?" Mulder asked. "Why not attack the first human it found on the street?"

"So what do you think it is?"

"That is yet to be determined," he smiled.

She reached out and took some of the papers from his stack, getting comfortable in the seat. She read carefully, digesting, until she realised her eyes were trying to close. She fought it off, but eventually she leant back and allowed her eyes to rest for just a moment.

"Welcome to C.E. 'Rusty' Williams Airport, otherwise known as DeSoto Parish Airport," a voice said over the speakers. Scully gave a start and opened her eyes, but the voice continued: "We'd like to thank you for flying with us today, and look forward to serving you again in the future. It is currently seventy degrees Fahrenheit on the ground here with a relative humidity of sixty-eight percent, and while it's expected to be cloudy, we're not that worried about any showers today, so have a good one folks and we'll see you again real soon."

Scully reached over to Mulder to take back the files and photographs, but noticed he was asleep. She paused, studying how relaxed he looked compared to all the times he had appeared half-crazed. Shaking her head, she reached over and worried his shoulder.

He jumped in his skin and his hands flipped up just enough to toss photographs to the footwell. Blinking around to get his bearings allowed him to find Scully and offer her an apology in the form of a sheepish smile. She simply raised his eyebrows and he dived after the photos, retrieving them all and helping her pack all the case files back into their large, FBI-embossed document wallet.

Scully waited for the seat belt sign to dim before she unbuckled herself and stood in the aisle. Mulder got up but had to hunch under the low ceiling. By the time the plane had stopped, the two agents were hefting their hand luggage down the aisle.

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* * *

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DeSOTO PARISH, LOUISIANA

6:51pm (Central time)

.

Mulder opened the door to the motel reception office, keeping his hand high on the wood to prop it open. Scully carried her bag in under his arm, and then he followed her in.

She was already making use of the silver push bell on the desk. It _ting_ ed once, twice, and then a side door opened and a woman appeared. Older and more tired than the two agents put together, she nevertheless came to the counter and smiled up at them both.

"Good evening," she said with cheer. "A double for you folks, then?"

"Ah, no - two rooms, please," Scully said.

"Oh dear," the woman replied, her smile fading as she opened a large book on the counter. "Well I hope you work it out."

Mulder turned a shit-eating grin on Scully. She rolled her eyes and put her hand on the counter. "Ma'am, we're with the FBI," she said. "We're in town on an investigation and we'd like two rooms, please."

"FBI?" she asked, surprised. "What could you possibly be investigatin' in this part of the world? —Wait, is this that dig that went bad? Is it cos it's money?"

Scully straightened slightly. "We couldn't comment—"

"Ah - yeah, yeah it is," Mulder interrupted, hovering closer to the counter. "Shame about those two workers, huh?"

"Nasty business," she sighed. "Still, old Judge Lanoux warned 'em. He did about all he could. If they want to go and ignore the warnings, then it's on them, I say."

"What warnings would these be?" Mulder asked.

"Well you know about the land, right? Why it was waste ground for so damn long?"

"No. Do tell," he said with his best attempt at a disarming smile.

She looked at the two agents before putting her palms on the desk and leaning closer to them. "Well don't go repeating it, but I heard that it was the Babineaux family that started it all. They were always a weird sort."

"Were?" Scully prompted.

The woman pushed a large open book toward her and a pen. "Rooms three and eight, sign right there. They got en suites and TV, even."

"Sorry - you were telling us about the Babineaux family," Mulder urged.

"Well they came over from wherever, made their own place, had a whole heap of children. Time went on, of course, they all moved away. Lawyers in New Orleans, doctors and the like - all of them in the city. Left the Babineaux by themselves in that large circle of land."

"It was a circle?" Mulder asked.

"Yes sir. Weirdest thing - everyone else had stakes all squares of all sizes. But that family? Just a plain old circle."

Scully finished writing in details and pushed the book back toward her. "Where are the Babineaux family now?"

"They're all gone, ma'am. Time and family will do that to you." She turned away to a large wooden board behind her, resplendent with brass keys a little on the large side. She picked two and put them on the counter. "So you payin' for this or Uncle Sam?"

"That'll be us first, and him when we get back with a receipt," Scully said. She delved into her coat pocket for her wallet, pulling out a credit card. "What happened to the land when the last of the family died?" she asked.

The woman took the card with a thank you, turning to a machine off to her right. "Well, that's where you'd have to ask the notary folks. Some say the family willed the place back to the land. Others say it was just too damn expensive to buy from the estate of the youngest. I don't rightly know. But I do know Judge Lanoux was right - no-one should build on that. He told them and he told 'em and look what happened."

"But he just gave them clearance," Mulder said.

"Yeah, it's got his name on it, but we have committees down here, sir. I'm guessing he was one against a tide of people looking for money."

"Or residences," Scully said. "We may be from 'the city' but we can see how badly people need homes down here."

"People will _always_ need homes, Miss…" She peered at the credit card. "Scully. Doesn't mean we have to use the badlands for them." She pulled the papers from the credit card machine and slipped them over the counter toward Scully. "Signature, please."

She signed and then turned the paper around to slide it back. "You've been very helpful, Ms..?"

"Ledet, honey. But you can call me Rose." She smiled and picked up the slips, separating them and then handing one back to the agent. "Three for you, Miss Scully, and eight for you, Mr…" She looked down at her book. "Mulder. You go right out the door here and turn right - head along and you'll see three and eight. They're opposite each other."

"Thanks," Scully said.

"Didn't want to put you folks too close together - Vegas money says he snores," she grinned.

Mulder inclined his head. "Well something has to drown out the sound of her grinding her teeth."

Rose paused, surprised, but Mulder swept up the two keys and headed for the door. Scully tore her annoyed eyes from Mulder long enough to nod a genial thank you to Rose. Then she picked up her bag and followed Mulder down the aforementioned path.

The doors were right where they were supposed to be. Mulder had his key in the door of number eight, on the left of the corridor, as Scully heard her phone ring in her pocket. He got in but left his door open as Scully answered the blare.

"Yes. Agent McGivers? Yes - I am. Agent Mulder is with me, yes. We're just checking in. We're off… Washington Avenue. Yes, quite a coincidence." She paused. "Ok then. We'll be there in half an hour." She pocketed the phone and opened her door, hefting her bag inside.

A bright, well-maintained room greeted her and she blew out a sigh of relief. Taking her bag to the single bed in the middle, she took in the chair under the window, the table off to one side, the small television set huddled upon it as if embarrassed to be there.

"Was that the branch agent?" came Mulder's call from across the hallway.

"Agent McGivers," Scully called back. "She said to go down to the local police station so we can meet the Sheriff and get a jump on things."

"All hands on deck at this time of night?"

"Apparently, Skinner wasn't kidding about getting this solved ASAP."

She closed the door and undressed quickly, opening her bag and finding jeans and walking boots. As she changed she felt a breeze down her arm. She paused and looked over at the window. She crossed and found it slightly open; she made sure it was tightly closed and checked the latch was down.

Her boots laced up and her hair combed and ready, she picked up her gun and badge, securing the first on the belt loop of her jeans and the second in her heavy coat. She pocketed her room key and closed the door behind her. Mulder was already in the hallway, also in jeans and his favourite Caterpillar boots, locking his door.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Let's go. Hopefully we can see the crime scene tonight and get some balls rolling."

"The Lariat chariot awaits," he smiled, waving her to go first down the hall.

.

* * *

.

7.16pm

.

Mulder opened the glass doors to the large building, pausing with his hand on the top to let Scully walk in under his arm. Her heavy walking boots took her up to the desk. She pulled out her badge and smiled at the officer on duty.

"Evening, Deputy…" She glanced down at the woman's badge. "Surette. I'm Special Agent Dana Scully with the FBI - this is Special Agent Mulder. We're here to speak to Agent McGivers from the branch office and the Sheriff. We're expected."

"Oh heavens, yes!" Surette said with obvious excitement. "Let me get her for you. Please take a seat."

Scully turned and her right eyebrow scaled her forehead so high, Mulder worried it would fall off the back of her head. He gestured to the comfy-looking chairs to one side of the lobby and they wandered over, but they were too interested in the view outside the windows to sit down.

"Plan?" Mulder asked.

"I'd like to review their findings - seeing as the autopsies were not in the files we were given." She looked up at him. "Crime scene?"

"I want to take a look at any tracks that were left," he nodded. "And then I think a trip to their land registry is in order - this thing about families is interesting."

"Agents?"

They turned to see a woman, nearer fifty than forty, in a sheriff's uniform minus her hat, which was being throttled by both hands. She looked directly at Mulder. "I'm Rosanna Carson, the sheriff here. I'd just like to thank you for getting down here so fast."

He put his hand out. "I'm Mulder, this is Special Agent Scully." They shook and then Carson turned to Scully.

Scully shook her hand firmly. "We were told Agent McGivers would be here too."

"Oh she's been held up. She called," she said. "So, what do you need from me and how fast can I get it for you?"

Scully rocked on her heels, looking at her feet for a moment. "Well I would like to go over the autopsies, if you wouldn't mind. My partner wants to head down to the crime scene."

"Sure thing, sure thing," she nodded. "Do you have the address there, Agent Mulder?"

"I do, thanks," he said.

"You got a car? You can borrow my truck but you'll have to ignore the junk food wrappers. I had a late one last night, dealing with folks panicking that they're seeing all kinds of weird animals in their yards."

"I'm good, Sheriff, thanks," he nodded. He looked at Scully. "I'll go on ahead. If McGivers catches you up call me."

"Don't get bitten by a red wolf," Scully said politely.

Mulder gave a wry smile and waved a hand up over his shoulder as he turned away, heading back to the door.

Scully turned to the sheriff. "So. Autopsies?" she asked.

Sheriff Carson put a hand out to show the way past the barrier to the corridor beyond. "This way please. Our morgue is back here. I'm sorry to tell you I got some bad news. Our pathologist refused the autopsies. He's suspended, so we got no-one else to do it. But the FBI assured me they were sending someone who could do that for us. Now I got nothing against bureau help, and to be honest, it might be a lot quicker than old Lawrence doing it."

"Lawrence?" Scully prompted.

"Lawrence Fete, our pathologist. He's getting on in years, and there are times I want to grab his wrists and make him work faster, you know what I mean?"

"Can I ask why he refused?"

Carson blew out a sigh. "He's superstitious. He thinks it's all do with some creature from a folk tale - don't tell anyone I told you," she said, resigned. "Like I said, he's old."

Scully gave a half smile. "Well I'm qualified to do an autopsy, Sheriff. I'd be happy to step in and get this investigation started."

"All to the good," Carson nodded. She led her through a few office corridors until they came round to a particularly well-lit room, spacious and well-stocked with medical implements and supplies. "Here we are. And our guests are in lockers twenty-three and four," she said, going across the room and opening up a silver door. She pulled out the gurney to reveal a body under a white sheet, the swinging toe tag proclaiming him to be D. Petrus. "Now, if you need me please don't hesitate to call. Nancy out on the front desk there can get you anything."

"Thank you," Scully nodded.

The sheriff walked out, leaving the glass door to close slowly behind her. Scully crossed to an empty gurney and pulled off her coat, looking around for the sink.

.

* * *

.

7:43pm

.

Mulder brought the rental car to a stop by the longhut. He climbed out and squinted up at the large banks of lights, currently unemployed and definitely moody about it. Shaking his head, he produced a flashlight from the pocket of his waterproof and made for the hut.

The door was swathed in yellow tape but otherwise unlocked; he ducked and squirmed to get through it and walk in to find the area suspiciously empty. He looked down at his boots, his torch throwing light on the marks by them. He crouched and ran a finger over the perfectly round prints in the floor, before he looked up and assessed the legs of the table against the wall. He got up and wandered over to an outline on the wooden boards. The flashlight traced it all around like a race-car circuit until it came back to the beginning. Then he crouched and considered the position and shapes.

The torchlight spilt over something in the floor. He stared at it, then brought his face closer, his left hand testing its relief. He stroked in thought before he gripped the end of the flashlight in his mouth and used both hands to test the depth and width beneath the hovering light. He pulled a large plastic bag from his jacket pocket and leant closer.

.

* * *

.

8:48pm

.

Scully pulled off the safety glasses and put them on the gurney next to the remains of Daniel Petrus. She leant her hands on the edge and surveyed the empty cavern where his abdomen has been. Then she pulled off her gloves and went to the table behind her, dropping the protective skins into the hazards bin and picking up her phone. She dialled and waited.

"Mulder? It's me. I've just finished the autopsy on Daniel Petrus myself. No - the pathologist here has been suspended. —He refused to do the autopsies on these two victims. I didn't get the whole story but Sheriff Carson did the suspending, so ask her - in the morning." She listened. "Did you find anything? Well what is it? Oh." She pulled off her scrub wrap and bundled it up, pushing it into the hazards bin too. "Ok, well… It's late and I want to sleep off a five-hour flight and an autopsy. I'll start the other body fresh in the morning. It's been a long day. Ok." She pressed the red button and pocketed the phone, turning to the dead body. She pushed it back into its temporary resting place and swung the small door shut, leaning on it until it gave a _click_. Then she went out of the morgue and through to the main reception area.

She found the same officer manning the main desk and paused by the side. "Hi," she announced.

The woman half jumped out of her seat in surprise. "Oh! Hi!" she managed.

"I didn't mean to startle you," Scully said.

"That's ok," Surette said, pushing her dark hair away from her face. "I swear I dose off with my eyes open some nights. Can I get you anything?"

Scully smiled. "Actually I came to say I'm done with the first victim. I want to start on the second in the morning - I don't think I'll be able to do an autopsy justice if I do it half asleep."

"I hear you, I hear you," Surette smiled. "Well then. Do you know your way back to the motel, or - no, I can give you a lift," she beamed.

"There's no need to put yourself out," Scully said.

"No no no, Agent Scully - that's got to be a half hour walk from here. Besides, it's not as warm as it was - and there's animals to think about."

"Are you worried about the animal that killed the two in the morgue?" Scully asked with a small smile.

"No ma'am - I'm worried about having to explain to the FBI that I let you walk across town when some kind of murderer is walking the streets," she said earnestly.

"Oh."

"But it'd be nice if it _was_ an animal that did this," she sighed, getting out of her chair. "That'd be much nicer than having to figure out which human could do something like that."

"You're right there," Scully said.

Surette picked up her keys and another, giant ring of the same before she ushered Scully to the main doors. She locked everything up and made sure the front door was secure before going to the only patrol car still in the car park.

"How many deputies do you have here, Deputy Surette?" Scully asked.

"Call me Nancy. We have… oh… five or six," she said. She opened up the car and they both climbed in. "Two of us are part time - me and Bob. The others are paid for by feds, of course. It doesn't hurt to have a few extras for when the full-timers can't keep up," she grinned. She started the car and pulled out slowly, and then turned onto the main road. "So. How long have you two been FBI agents?"

Scully glanced at her. "A while."

"Did you start out together or were you just paired up later?" she asked. "Scuze me for asking, but I was always curious about the FBI. I mean, it's like police for bigger things, y'know?"

Scully watched the street roll past her window. "It sure is," she mused, as if to herself. "We joined the bureau separately, but then… as you say, we were paired up later."

"Bet you've seen some interesting stuff, huh."

"Oooh yeah," she allowed. "A lot."

"Old Rose down at the motel - she says your man there's not bad lookin', if you'll excuse me for sayin'. She says he's a snorer, though. Is that true?" she teased.

Scully rolled her eyes. "Whether Agent Mulder snores or not is really no business of mine," she said politely.

"Oh hey, I was just kidding," she grinned. "You're our girl from Washington, come to put all this right."

"And 'our man from Washington'?" Scully asked.

"Oh Agent Mulder will try. He's got that look about him."

Scully said nothing, choosing instead to permit a small smile to reflect in the car window.

A few minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot outside the motel. Scully clambered out and bid Surette a good night before she went into the complex and found her room number. She barely had her key in the door before she heard the one behind her open.

"Scully - look at this."

She noted the excitement in Mulder's voice and turned. "Is this going to be quick? It's after nine and I haven't even eaten yet."

He reached out and put a hand on her wrist, and guided her round and into his room. He closed the door and pointed to the bed. "What do you think?" he grinned.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh my God, Mulder," she breathed in awe. "I thought you'd never ask."

.


	3. Encounter at Farpoint

**THREE**

 **Encounter at Farpoint**

.

Scully stared at the bed in wonder.

"How exciting is that?" he grinned, folding his arms and fixing her with a child-like grin of pride. "I found it at the crime scene. No-one else noticed it."

"Yeah, great, a plaster cast," she rattled off, going straight to his bed and perching on the edge. She ignored the white lump on the blankets and instead pulled a large cardboard sleeve toward her. If the pizza on board was a little disconcerted to be hauled over to her, then it was screaming in fear as she picked up a slice. "What _is_ this?"

"Oh." He blinked, a little crestfallen. "Uh… You like everything on it, right? Minus the anchovies."

She bit into it and just let herself enjoy the feeling of hot cheese and miscellaneous meat bits. "It's… _amazing_ ," she managed around the mouthful.

Mulder sighed a little sadly and sat on the other side of the bed. He took a slice for himself. "How did the autopsy go?" He chomped on the shambles of cheese and bacon.

She swallowed. "Easy. Nothing medically wrong with him, save the missing guts and digestive tract, and defensive wounds. What I can't work out is why someone would want to kill him like that - he must have been alive while someone or something dug him bare. He died of blood loss and trauma."

Mulder paused to eye his pizza topping. He licked his lip clean and then dropped the rest of the slice to the box. "It must be an animal. It was big enough and strong enough to pin him down, and the other victim, and literally eat them alive. And _this_ ," he said, reaching out and picking up the other item on the bed, "is a plaster cast of a massive swathe that was carved out of the floor. I'm thinking it was caused by the claw on a foot."

Scully gave it a cursory glance but then all her attention went back to the pizza. "A claw that large? What was it, Bigfoot?"

Mulder smiled. "Bigfoot doesn't have claws, Scully."

"Anything on this Bibelot family?"

"Babineaux," he corrected. "A lot, actually. It's amazing the records a town keeps when it thinks no-one's looking."

"Meaning?" she asked. She reached for a second slice of pizza.

"They moved into the town a few generations ago. It was pretty much as Rose said - they settled here, bought a whole lot of land, and managed to upset the local notary."

"How?"

"Well they paid extra for a circular plot - they were very specific about it. There are letters from them practically begging for a round piece of land - in the end they bought the square plot but carved a circle inside it, giving the extra bits they didn't want to their neighbours." He looked back at the plaster cast in his hands. "The neighbours agreed - who wouldn't want extra land for free? The notary was less than impressed; he wanted everyone to have squares."

Scully paused her chewing. "Why a circle?" she wondered. "Why go to all that trouble?"

"Well a lot of cultures perceive a circle as the basis of protection symbols, mostly because it has no corners. They say the devil can be trapped in a circle because he has no corners to squeeze out of."

"Mulder, don't be ridiculous. You're saying a devil or similarly hypothetical creature can only squeeze out through a corner?"

"Or a weakening of the boundary line. There are countless religious texts that explicitly call for a circle when trapping an evil entity inside or keeping bad things out - specifically because while a devil or evil spirit cannot cross an unbroken line, it can use the weakened part of a kink caused by a corner to escape." He picked up the half-eaten pizza slice and bit into it.

"So what you're saying is that, as long as you're standing in a circle, you can't be attacked by a demon?" she said with a whimsical smile.

"Depends what the circle is made out of." He swallowed his pizza. "Anyway, Mr and Mrs Babineaux had five children, each of whom married and had kids themselves. At one point the household boasted three generations all living together. Then the original Mr and Mrs passed away, leaving the house to the five siblings. Problem was, they were all girls."

"What's the problem there?" she asked.

"It wasn't their thing to hand titles down to women. Only the men got them."

"I know a few men like that - and I might have given them their own titles under my breath," she sniffed.

He grinned. "Sexist hierarchy withstanding, the daughters fought to keep their own land, again refusing to move any boundary that changed their plot from a circle. The title for the land went to each daughter, who married into other families, until they too died. The last male child of the Babineaux line died in 1992, although his death certificate is not on file."

"So what do we take from all this?"

Mulder grinned and stuffed the rest of his slice in his mouth. "They wanted a circular plot. Circles are supposed to keep bad things in or bad things out. A few days ago that circle was broken - the part of the land they were digging first? It cut into the _boundary line_ , Scully."

She finished off her part of the pizza. "So what, they broke the magic circle and let out an evil creature?"

"Yes."

She wiped her hands together. "Evidence?"

"I'm working on it."

She favoured him with a small smile. "Well while you work on it, I'm going to bed. Thanks for the pizza."

"Don't you want to look at the cast?"

"In the morning, Mulder."

"Hey - did Agent McGivers turn up?"

Scully paused on her way to the door. "No. I guess she got caught up."

"Maybe she's working on something useful."

"We can hope so." She reached for the door handle, but when she looked back at him, he had picked up the plaster cast and was studying it an inch from his nose. She smiled. "Goodnight, Mulder."

"Yep."

She went out and shut the door, going straight to hers and the soft bed beyond.

.

* * *

June 15th, 2000

8:01am

.

"Good morning," said a bright voice.

Rose Ledet looked up from her newspaper. She found a woman, perhaps mid-thirties, in a dark grey suit watching her from under a long black fringe. "Oh, morning. I didn't hear you come in."

"The local stories more interesting?" the woman smiled.

Rose sat back on her stool. "Well them Cajuns just keep racking up the points. What can I do for you?"

The woman leant both hands on the counter. "My name is Agent McGivers. I'm looking for FBI agents and Scully and Mulder - they're staying here."

"Oh yes - lovely couple. Shame about them falling out like that."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh don't mind me." She got up off her stool. "I can call their rooms for you if you'd like. See if they're awake."

"Please," she nodded. "I'll wait."

"Sure." Rose went to the phone to her right and picked it up. She pushed the old dial around and waited. And waited. Finally she gave up and tried the other room number. It clicked after only a few rings. "Oh, morning Ms Scully," she beamed. "There's an Agent McGivers here to speak to you. I tried your fella but he's not answering his room phone. …Uh-huh. Ok then." She put the receiver back in its cradle. "She'll be right down," she called across.

"Oh, no hurry," McGivers said. She lifted her watch and checked the time, before pulling out a flip-over notebook. She slid a pencil out from behind her ear and burdened the first blank page.

It was several minutes later that the reception door opened and Scully appeared, looking very smart and presentable in a black trouser suit and sturdy heels. Mulder flailed in behind her, desperately trying to pull his suit jacket on his arm without dropping his keys or his mobile phone.

"Agent McGivers," Scully said, going straight over and putting her hand out.

McGivers slotted her pencil behind her ear and shook her palm. "Agent Scully. I've heard a lot about you. I look forward to working with you."

"Thank you," Scully managed. "This is Agent Mulder."

Mulder's keys had made it into his trouser pocket and his phone into his teeth, wherefrom it was quickly snatched and his free hand went out to McGivers'. They shook. "Morning. Sorry we're late."

"No matter, Agent Mulder. Your reputation precedes you."

"Oh," he allowed, but if Scully noticed the sudden sag to his shoulders she said nothing.

But McGivers was smiling. "I've read many of your cases. While your individual reports… _vary_ , once you put them together you get a very interesting whole." She looked down at her notebook.

Mulder took the opportunity to nudge Scully's shoulder with his arm. She looked up at him and he stretched his chin down in a drawn-out frown, which Scully read to mean _well what do you know?_. She looked back at McGivers.

"I apologise for not catching up with you last night," McGivers said, closing the notebook and pushing it into an inside jacket pocket. "I was severely delayed and I am not happy about it. I dearly wanted to see you two work."

"Oh, ah…" Scully blinked. "I… did an autopsy over at the sheriff's morgue, and Agent Mulder found another piece of evidence that apparently everyone else missed at the crime scene. Where do you want to start?"

McGivers waved a hand toward the door. "Perhaps we could go over your findings together. Have you compared the two autopsies?"

"I still need to perform the second one," Scully said as they walked. "I only had time for the first victim last night."

"Of course. It was remiss of us to drag you all the way out here and expect you to work through the night," McGivers nodded in all seriousness. "The days really aren't long enough, are they? Perhaps we agents would be better suited to the daily rotation of Mercury," she added cheerfully.

"Fifty-nine Earth days in one day would drive me nuts," Mulder said absently.

" _More_ nuts," Scully amended.

"Quite," McGivers smiled. "Morgue first? If you wouldn't mind presiding over the second victim, Agent Scully, perhaps Agent Mulder and I could be present as we digest the case notes we have - so to speak."

Mulder and Scully shared a long look. Then he straightened up. "Sounds like a plan," he said with a wide smile, holding the door open. Scully went through first, McGivers offering Mulder a grateful nod as she followed.

.

* * *

9:22am

.

Scully bent closer to the body, peering through her protective glasses. "Small contusion… or similar mark… on the upper right arm, rear section," she said aloud. She put her hands to the arm of the late Shirley Duchamp and turned it carefully, to show more of the mark under the bright morgue inspection light.

"You found a similar mark on Mr Petrus, is that correct?" McGivers asked. She flipped through the autopsy report in her hands until she found the pertinent details. "A smudge, one inch-wide and two long, that appeared to behave like a bruise, but did not seem to have been caused the same way."

"Yes," Scully said, pre-occupied.

Mulder unfolded his arms and wandered around the table, coming up to her side. "What do you think caused it? On both victims?" he asked.

Scully frowned at the mark. "Hard to say. It doesn't seem to have been caused by a blow or pressure. It acts like a bruise but it can't be a bruise - there's no corresponding damage."

Mulder leant over to bring his nose much closer. Scully did a double-take and grabbed his tie, holding it back against his shirt to avoid it dipping itself into the bloody mess on the gurney.

McGivers' eyes narrowed. She picked up her notebook, slid her pencil from behind her ear, and scribbled a few lines. Both implements went back to their stations and she picked up the autopsy report again.

Mulder straightened up. "This is the only common link," he said. He stepped back to give Scully more room. "Is it possible the creature somehow left that mark?"

"It's highly unlikely," Scully said. "The amount of force used to hold these people down, and keep them there while it ate… I seriously doubt that something as… light… as that damage could be caused. In fact, I wouldn't even call it damage."

Mulder scratched the back of his head, wandering back round to the shelving to give himself something to lean on. "What if it's not caused by the attack? What if it's just the creature… I don't know, brushing past them and leaving this mark by accident?"

Scully looked over her protective glasses at him, with a small smile. "And it just happened to do this to both victims before it came back and ate them alive?"

He pointed at her. "Maybe it did. Maybe _that's_ how it chooses its victims."

"How do you mean?" McGivers asked.

He turned to her. "Well maybe it's marking its victims so it can find them later. Maybe it _wanted_ these two people because they'd opened up the circle."

Scully rolled her eyes and went back to her autopsy.

"Circle?" McGivers prompted.

"What if the reason the creature is loose," Mulder said, "is that someone broke the boundary around the land? It was supposed to be a circle - supposed to _stay_ a circle."

McGivers looked confused. "Explain."

He went to the whiteboard behind Scully's work area and pulled down a marker. He drew several boxes, about a foot wide each, before he drew a rough circle in the middle box. "This is the land. This circle here is the plot that belonged to the Babineaux family, before it was sold to the city of Mansfield in 1992." He capped the pen and looked back at McGivers. "The family bought a circular plot on purpose. For over a hundred years they kept it exactly that. Now the boundary here," he said, turning back to the drawing and using his index finger to wipe away a nickel-sized gap in the edge of the circle, "has been dug into, which means the circle is broken."

McGivers' black high heels clicked across the tiles. She stopped next to him, folding her arms. "What is the significance of the circle?"

"Protection, maybe. Holding something in, perhaps," he offered. "I think whatever was trapped in there by the Babineaux family was let out when the boundary was dug into. Now it's free and it's attacked the first two people it found - or maybe the people that broke it out." He put down the marker pen.

"Well that doesn't make sense," Scully scoffed from her work. "If you'd been trapped on one piece of land for over a hundred years and you were suddenly set free, wouldn't you thank your rescuers, not eat them?"

McGivers glanced at her. "Agent Scully makes a good point."

Scully looked over at her - just looked. Then she shook her head and went back to work.

Mulder looked down at McGivers. "That would require a degree of intelligence," he said. "The creature would have to understand the nature of its entrapment in the first place, why it couldn't cross the boundary. And then it would have to realise how that line came to be ruined, and that the two people with massive mechanical equipment - that it wouldn't have come into contact with during the time it was trapped - that _they_ committed the act that had direct consequences on its predicament."

McGivers nodded. "I understand. So… this creature possesses above-average intelligence - and it's quite old." She folded her arms and looked at her shoes, wandering back across the room.

Mulder looked over at Scully. She raised her eyebrows at him with a whimsical smile before stepping back from the corpse and pulling her gloves off. "Well," she announced, "I can confirm Shirley Duchamp died the same way Daniel Petrus did - held down and eaten alive. As for the similar smudge-cum-bruise-like marks on their bodies? No idea." She pulled up the white sheet, covering the face and cavernous hole in the mid section. She looked up at him. "What's next?" she asked.

"I think… this thing could be on the hunt for anyone now it's free," he mused. He chewed the side of his lip. "Assuming it needs to eat to survive, it'll already be looking for its next victim."

"Where do we begin looking for it?" McGivers asked. "We can't just wait around for it to strike again."

Mulder shook his head. "I have no idea." He straightened up and looked at Scully. "How about… you two go and ask Judge Lanoux a few questions - like why he tried to stop the committee opening up the land to development. Maybe he knows why the boundary line was there."

"Did you read about Judge Lanoux in the file we were given?" Scully asked dryly. "He's into nature reserves and preserving wildlife. Maybe there's a rare kind of tree, or flower, or animal that needs that land, Mulder."

"Well one kind of animal certainly did." He went to the door. "I'll catch up with you later."

"Where are you off to?" Scully asked.

"Just thought of something. I'm going to check it out."

The door closed softly behind him and Scully pulled off her scrub vest, wrapping it up and pushing it in the hazards bin. "Would you be able to arrange a meeting with Judge Lanoux?" she asked.

McGivers nodded. "Of course. I'll attend to it at once." She turned and fled.

Scully, her eyebrows raised again, this time in surprise, watched the door swing shut behind the dark grey skirt suit and black heels. She thought for a moment, shook her head, and grasped the edge of the gurney to wheel it back into the locker.

.

* * *

12:37pm

.

Sylvie worked away at her simple desk, clicking at things on her computer screen and prompting the printer into work. She signed and folded, sorted and wrote. Scully watched her idly as she swung her chair to toss an envelope at the large red box by the wall. It whizzed in through the wide open mouth and Sylvie smiled to herself, going back to the computer screen.

The phone by her hand buzzed quietly and she picked it up. "Of course, sir." She put it down and stood to walk around the desk. "Agents?" she said. Scully and McGivers looked over at her and she waved a hand toward the only other door in the room. "Judge Lanoux can see you now."

"Thank you—. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name," Scully said.

"Oh, my name's Sylvania Morin - but everyone calls me Sylvie."

"Everyone?" Scully asked. She looked around the reception room as she got up from the comfortable chair, devoid of people save themselves. "I would have thought the judge would have more of an entourage."

Sylvie smiled at her, then McGivers. "He just wants to get work done. He thinks too many cooks spoil the broth, and all that."

"Ah - yes," McGivers nodded. "I understand."

Scully resisted the urge to look at her. "Well, if you wouldn't mind," she said to Sylvie.

"This way, please." Sylvie turned and went for the large wooden door. She opened it up and looked in. "Sir? The two FBI agents." She nodded something and pulled back from the door. Scully and McGivers went past her and into the study.

Scully had time to look around, noting the miniature carved busts of birds, foxes, and all manner of small furry animals around the bookshelves. Every piece of furniture was old world dark brown, complete with a couple of rich leather armchairs pointed toward what appeared to be an antique writing desk.

A tall man was standing behind the desk, pulling his suit jacket straight. "Good afternoon," he said. "It's not often that I get a visit from the FBI."

Scully smiled and walked up to the desk, holding her hand out. "We hope to be gone as soon as possible, sir."

He shook her hand and then that of McGivers. "Well, I hope you won't find me rude if I say I am in agreement with you, Agent…?"

"Scully. This is Agent McGivers," she said.

"Please, sit down and tell me what I can do for you," he said.

McGivers seated herself primly, before pulling out her notebook and pencil. Scully sat and laced her fingers on her knee. She looked up to the judge, but something over his left shoulder caught her gaze. It ran over the odd shape, covered in long, cream-coloured spines, before she made herself pay attention. "We're, ah, here about the land deal," she said. "From what I've read, there doesn't seem to be any real monetary reason for killing construction workers over it."

"No there is not," he sighed. "While I'd prefer the land to stay the way it was, I have to admit it would have brought a lot of jobs to the parish, what with building and infrastructure."

"Can I ask why you are opposed to the land being released?" Scully asked.

He hesitated. "The… ecosystem," he allowed. "There are animals here that need a place to nest, or burrow, or simply live. We're covering more and more of our land here in tarmac and stone, and it's not leaving them a lot of options."

"To which creatures are you referring?" McGivers asked politely. She had her pad and pencil at the ready, as if waiting for a competition starting pistol.

"Well the grey wolf is one of them," he said. "You'd be surprised, but they do come into yards and houses, even, looking for food. If we continue to build over pieces of land like that waste ground, they're going to start doing it more and more to compensate."

"I wasn't aware the grey wolf was present in this part of Louisiana," Scully said.

"Well we do get a fair mixture of wildlife, Agent Scully," he smiled.

"Is it true you've already filed a complaint against the construction company for starting one evening too early?"

He hissed slowly, as if letting out many uncomfortable thoughts. "The agreement was that I could oversee them actually breaking ground - it's tradition around here. They were supposed to prep whatever they wanted, but they couldn't actually start digging until the next morning, when I could get there to see it. They went against the judgement and they broke earth in the evening."

"Do you think that's why they were killed?" McGivers asked with bright enthusiasm.

Lanoux studied her for a long moment. "I do not believe anyone here would do that, no," he said slowly.

"What _do_ you believe to be the reason they were killed?" Scully asked.

Lanoux sat back in his chair. "I hate to say it, but the Louisiana black bear has been seen around here."

"Not a grey wolf?" McGivers asked. "A moment ago you said—"

"The wolves need the land, but they're scavengers, opportunists. They'd rather eat a rabbit or chase down a bird than attack a full grown man," he said dismissively.

"And a bear would stray onto a noisy construction site in the dark and eat two people alive?" McGivers asked.

Lanoux eyed her. She simply blinked at him, her face a picture of innocent patience. He looked at Scully. "Do you have any leads on finding this animal, whatever it is?"

"Not at the moment, no, sir," she allowed. "We're having trouble identifying what did this."

"I see," he nodded, somewhat sadly.

The blare of a cell phone made them all jump. Scully pressed her pocket to her hastily. "I'm sorry - that's me," she said. The judge waved a hand at her and she sprang up, pressing the green button even as she wandered to the back of the room.

"Scully," came the voice down the line.

"Mulder? What do you have?" she asked quickly.

"I know what did this."

She blinked, frowning at the carpet. "Are you certain?"

"I can show you. Meet me at the library."

"The library? What was it, a death watch beetle?"

"Nope - something better. Get down here, the computers are fantastic."

She pressed the red button and slid her phone back into her pocket. "Excuse us, sir. It seems my partner has a lead."

"Well good," he said, surprised. He got up as McGivers stood and slid her pencil back behind her ear. It was lost in the shoulder-length black hair as she put her hand out to the judge.

"Thank you for your time," she said with a smile.

He shook her hand, and then waited for Scully to come forward and shake his too. "Thank you for looking into this," he said. "I don't need to remind you how fast we need this put to rest."

"No sir," she said. "Thank you for seeing us."

They whisked out of the office, offering Sylvie a friendly nod, but it wasn't until they were out on the street and Scully was waving down a cab that McGivers turned to her.

"What does Agent Mulder have?" she asked, excitement nipping at her tone.

"I have no idea," she sighed. A car came to a stop by the kerb in front of her. "I have to warn you - it might be something odd."

"Ah, yes. He has a history of this, I believe. It's impressive," McGivers nodded. She opened the door and waved her hand toward it.

Scully stood back. "Oh no, please," she said.

McGivers smiled and scooted into the back seat. Scully looked around, allowed herself a ponderous frown, and then slid in too.

.


	4. Redshirt Alert

**FOUR**

 **Redshirt Alert**

.

June 15th, 2000

1:27pm

.

Scully walked through the large library, her head turning leisurely as she scanned the faces, the furniture, the air of serious concentration. She eventually found a familiar tuft of hair partially hidden behind an open book that was standing up on a study table.

McGivers _click-click_ ed along behind her, keeping up as Scully neared the desk. She towered over the book to find Mulder with his right elbow out on the table and his hand under his chin. His eyes swivelled up and his slack-jawed expression snapped so quickly into an enthusiastic smile that she almost stood back.

"Here, look," he said quietly, lowering the book to the table. "Here be monsters."

Scully went around him to his right side, pulling the chair out and sitting slowly as her eyes ran over the picture in the large book.

McGivers peered at it over his left shoulder, then turned and found a spare wooden chair, bringing it back over and seating herself. "What _is_ that?" she whispered, bending her nose closer.

Mulder sat back and folded his arms. "A peluda."

"A what?" Scully asked. "Mulder, it looks like a lizard crossed with a porcupine."

"Perceptive as always, Scully," he nodded. "The peluda was famous back in medieval times for terrorising a French town called La Ferté-Bernard."

"Medieval times," Scully echoed. "So… what, it was just stuck in that circle of land for a thousand years?"

"Maybe not," he said. "The Babineaux family were originally from a small place just down the Huisne river from La Ferté-Bernard. Mr Albert Babineaux was a physician, and his wife was a school teacher. They came to America in the 1850s."

"And you think they brought this with them?" Scully asked.

"Maybe not intentionally," he shrugged. "Maybe it stowed away, or… maybe it's able to travel inside a person, or an object—"

"So you're saying this lizard-porcupine got loose and killed two people," Scully interrupted flatly.

"Eye witnesses in France said it was well over eight feet long, including the tail," he said. "And large enough - and strong enough - to fight a bear and win. And its favourite midnight snack was entrails. Doesn't that sound like our killer?"

"So it's been in America… for one hundred and fifty years?" McGivers asked. The other two agents turned to look at her. "And it was trapped for all that time, on its own? It must be very, _very_ hungry. And awfully lonely," she mused. She got up and wandered over to a bookshelf.

Mulder slid completely round in his chair to look at Scully, his elbow on the table. "When are we going to talk about the weird assistant we've picked up?" he asked with a polite smile, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

"She's doing her job, Mulder," she said.

"How so? Finding evidence - no wait, _I_ did that. Determining cause of death from the bodies? _You_ did that. Meeting the judge and asking him about his involvement with all this? _You_ did that. What is she doing here?"

"She's a branch agent, Mulder. She doesn't do field work. And in case you hadn't noticed, she seems to believe that you know everything about monsters and I can solve an entire case from a single dead body."

"You read entrails like tea leaves now?" he asked with a grin. She looked at him to distract herself from rolling her eyes. He turned back to the book. "Seriously, we need to find a way to track this thing. Look at its feet - just like the plaster cast I got."

Scully pulled the book over toward her. "Let me see that," she said. He pushed it over and she peered at it, but as she moved to stand it up she noticed McGivers by the bookshelf, scribbling in her notebook with furious speed. Scully pulled the book up to obscure her face from passers-by. "Have you noticed how McGivers is always taking notes?"

"Yeah. I figured she was going to offer to write your report for you."

"I wouldn't let her do that."

"She could do mine. I hate them."

"Is that why they're so short?"

"Well you know me, I have a short attention span." He brought his face up behind the book and popped his eyes over the top of the page to stare at her. "What is she doing now?"

"' _She_ ' is standing right behind you," Scully said with a raised eyebrow.

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut in abrupt self-kickery. He turned in his seat but there was no-one there.

Scully picked up the book and stood. "Got you," she grinned.

He let himself sag in both realisation and relief. She patted his shoulder and walked off toward the photocopiers by the check-out desk.

McGivers noted the way her hand had swept along his shoulder rather than lifting straight off. She looked at her notepad. She scribbled.

.

* * *

2:12pm

.

McGivers opened the door and two agents filed in, Scully with copies of some of the book's pages in her hand. Mulder carried a cardboard box of papers with him until they stopped dead in the centre of the room.

"You… work here?" Scully asked.

McGivers nodded. "I like to be by myself."

The office room had bookshelves for wallpaper - except they were filled with lever arch files, box files, and cardboard archive boxes. In some rare cases there were actual books in between them. The light was a bright strip light above them, the fluorescent tubing casting odd, barely-there shadows over the items on the single desk.

Mulder looked around, his hands still full. "Uh… do you have any more chairs?"

"Oh! How clumsy of me," she gasped, slapping a hand over her eyes. "I'll get some. Please, make yourselves at home."

"That would require beer and a couch," Mulder said, as if to himself, as he put his box down. McGivers did not appear to have heard as she swept out of the room.

Scully looked around. "She is… singular," she observed. She wandered to the desk and looked over the precision placement to everything.

"I think the word you're looking for is 'kooky'," he said.

"Then she should be your new partner. You two could tour the country looking for cases," she said with a teasing smile. "Spooky and Kooky - the X-Files twins."

"Ouch," he winced, slapping a hand to the shirt over his chest. "That hurt, Scully. I thought _you_ were the only one who could ever put up with my crap."

She smiled and continued to look around the room. "It's hard, I won't deny it. But that's why the FBI pay me the big bucks."

Mulder spun round slowly. "How much do you wanna bet that everything she notes down is somehow filed away in this room?"

"For what purpose?" Scully asked. She went to a shelf and pulled out a lever arch file. "It says… Remarkable Agents," she read from the spine. She took it to the desk and opened it up, finding a list of names on the inside cover. "FBI agents… listed by name. Each one has a 'year of import'."

"Like… immigrants? When they were brought in?"

"No, as in how important they are." She paused. "You're in here."

"I am?"

"It lists your various monographs… and your assignments with various units."

"I'm getting a real 'jack of all trades, master of none' vibe here, Scully."

"Actually… whoever put this report together seems to approve of your 'tireless devotion to the truth'."

"Well at least somebody does," he said. "Wait - are you in there?"

She flipped back to the inside cover and read carefully. "Yes." She ran much further on in the dead weight of computer print-outs. "Apparently I'm one hell of a pathologist," she blinked in surprise. "This lists my more 'important' autopsies - although I don't know how they've come to be classified as such. They seem to be rather random." She skimmed a few more pages. "You're not the only one with a fanatical devotion to the truth, Mulder. Whoever wrote these case studies uses the words 'allegedly' and 'claims' a lot." She closed the cover and carried the file back to the shelf and slotted it in.

"Maybe it'll be a relief to work with her. It should be nice to work with someone who takes me at face value, rather than assuming everything I say is fanciful," he said.

She turned and looked up at him. "Would you rather I wound you up and let you go, letting you write up reports that end in 'the undocumented and totally unsubstantiated monster did it'?" she asked, a little indignation creeping into her tone.

"Absolutely not," he scoffed. "If it weren't for you I'd have been fired years ago."

She smiled. "Don't you forget it."

McGivers appeared in the doorway with a collapsible chair in each hand. Mulder shoved his box of papers up to her desk and went back to the door, taking them off her. She nodded in thanks and walked in as the other two opened up the seats and made use of them close to her desk.

"Interesting office," Mulder said.

"I like it," she nodded.

"So," Scully said, "we know that Judge Lanoux was against the land being used, but he seems a bit resigned to knowing that it had to be."

"Sure?" Mulder managed, digging into his box of papers between his feet and resting a wad on his knee. He began to leaf through them.

"Absolutely. He said it was… the ecosystem, that he wanted it kept as-is for the wildlife," Scully said.

McGivers flipped open her notebook. "His exact words were: 'there are animals here that need a place to nest, or burrow, or simply live. We're covering more and more of our land here in tarmac and stone, and it's not leaving them a lot of options'," she read out. Mulder paused his hands to look at her. She smiled. "Short-hand. Very useful."

"I hope you don't take down everything _I_ say," he said politely.

"Oh _no_ ," she said. "Just the important things." She put her notebook down and looked at Scully. "Can I see this monster you found?"

Scully reached over the desk and picked up the top few pages of photocopies, paging through. "Here. Do you believe we're looking for this thing?" she asked.

McGivers stared down at the pictures and words. "What do _you_ believe?"

Scully considered her answer for a moment, idly taking in the way her hand swept against the page. When she looked up the other woman was watching her with hawk-like attention. "No, I don't believe we're looking for this thing. I think we're looking for a sociopath."

"With his very hungry pet bear in tow?" Mulder mused, pre-occupied.

"What are _you_ looking up?" Scully said, turning to him.

"The Babineaux family tree. Something tells me that they haven't completely died out."

"What tells you?" McGivers asked, excitement in her cheeks.

Scully looked at her, then back at Mulder. "Mulder, you said yourself that the last one died in 1992."

"I said the last surviving _male_ child died in 1992, Scully," he said. He ran his finger down a list on the page in his left hand. "But… you know how sexist some people can be. Sometimes… they forget… that women are… people too." He paused, then tapped the paper. "There."

"What is it?" McGivers asked.

"The last male child of Babineaux decent was Charlie. He died in 1992, that much is true. But he was survived by two years by his younger sister - Antoinette," he said.

"What happened to her?" Scully asked.

Mulder passed her a paper and began to read the next one. "That's what we need to find from somewhere in all these census returns."

"Let me help," McGivers said, putting her hands out. Mulder peeled away a good twenty pages, handing them over to her. She shuffled them straight, laid them on the desk in a perfect pile, and began to skim-read.

Scully sat back as much as she could on her slightly wobbly chair, taking another handful from him. The three of them were sucked into the silent world of nitpicking.

.

* * *

4:46pm

.

Scully yawned but managed to keep her mouth firmly closed, instead rubbing at an eye and standing up. She wandered the office, reading yet another piece of paper.

McGivers looked up suddenly. "Are we going about this the right way?" she asked.

"Yes," Scully muttered, her eyes fixed on the words.

"But… the animal is out there now. What if it's already attacking someone else?"

Scully straightened up to turn around and look at McGivers. "The sister is the key right now. If she married then we need to find out who to, and if she had any children. She was a direct descendent of the Babineaux family - the mitochondrial DNA will go through her. If she had any children, perhaps they could shed some light on all this."

McGivers flipped through her papers. "There are varying reports, here. It's very strange - normally the records are on computer, now. But these have been left alone - they haven't been transferred at all."

"I wonder who choses which records get done first," Mulder said.

"It's a shame they didn't go in alphabetical order," Scully remarked. She looked at her watch surreptitiously, but McGivers noticed and made no secret of sitting up straight in alarm. The other two agents looked at her, spooked.

"I am so sorry," McGivers said, getting to her feet. "It's well into the afternoon and we have not stopped for lunch. You must need to eat."

"Actually, yes," Scully said. "I was about to suggest we find something in this town that isn't deep fried."

"You mean _is_ deep fried," Mulder said with a serene smile.

She looked back at McGivers. "I can go out for food and bring you something back. What would you like?"

"No no no," McGivers said. "This will not do. You cannot be holed up in here all afternoon with no natural light and no fresh air. It's not good for a person." She went to the door. "Let's go."

Mulder and Scully shared a look that came fully loaded with everything from surprise to resignation. He got up and found his suit jacket, folding it over his arm as Scully also went for the door. They stepped out into the hallway, stretching and waiting for the other agent.

"I shall keep looking. You two take a break," McGivers said.

And she shut the door in their faces.

Scully blinked, then swayed round to look up at Mulder. He shrugged and put his hand to her shoulder, guiding her round and down the hallway in front of him. They went to the end of the corridor and Mulder went to turn left at the T-junction.

"Wait, Mulder - it's this way," Scully said, walking off to the right.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Sure."

He turned and followed her.

Until she turned around and walked back again, whereupon he kept his mouth shut behind a smug grin and just followed in her footsteps.

.

* * *

5:00pm

.

The phone rang. McGivers snatched it up. "Yes, sir. Very good, sir. In fact, Agent Mulder has already identified the creature. Yes, I was quite surprised myself, sir. Agent Scully has proven very useful - she has already given us the signs by which to categorise the attacks and the actual mark itself, although she does not understand its significance. She is also correct about the family tree."

She listened carefully for a moment.

"Of course, sir, everything," she said. "I do not have an assessment yet, sir. The speed with which the agents found evidence and a theory took me by surprise. Oh. Yes, sir. I understand." She frowned even as she listened to the older voice on the other end. "If you say so, sir. However, I must confess… Of all the agents I have studied and catalogued, these two have been by far the most… interesting. They are displaying far more information and stats than I had anticipated. Yes, sir, it's quite breath-taking." She listened to the voice. "So… perhaps we do not need to… end the experiment. It would be a great loss - to science - should we terminate the programme."

She paused and the voice talked at some length.

"I understand completely, sir. But… nevertheless I must protest the ending of their turn." She paused. "I assure you, sir, that even if I did feel in some away attached to them, it would not have an impact on my work here. I know it is not my place, but… I feel their story - their _contribution_ \- should not be ended quite so early. There are many more things they can teach us."

The voice went on and she listened intently, her face sagging with remorse.

"I understand, sir. It will be."

She replaced the phone receiver and her eyes, glazed with upset, stared unseeing at the papers on the desk. She felt something wet on her face and touched at it carefully. Pulling her hand away, she noticed water pooling on her skin. She stared, her head tilting in confusion.

And then she wiped her eyes and went back to her reading.

.

* * *

5:12pm

.

"Anything else I can do this evening, Judge Lanoux?" Sylvie asked, looking in the rear view mirror.

Lanoux was unbuckling his seat belt and gathering his belongings from the back seat. "No, I'm good, thank you, Sylvie," he said. "You can pick me up at nine tomorrow."

"Of course, sir."

"You're too good to me, Sylvie," he said happily.

She got out of the driver's side and opened up his door for him, waiting for him to stretch up tall and then turn for the path to his house. He stepped back and she closed the door for him.

"Have a good evening, sir," she smiled.

"And you, Sylvie. Go on home and put your feet up."

"Good evening, Judge Lanoux."

He nodded and patted her on the shoulder before walking away, up the stone path to the large house. The car started up and headed away from the kerb but he didn't turn. He found his house keys and let himself in, disabling the alarm by the door. Swinging the heavy door shut, he paused to lean back on it, looking up at the video camera pointed at the entrance. His hand came up and he waved to it sarcastically.

"Well here we go again. Another night by myself," he muttered. He carried his briefcase to the phone table, at the bottom of the stairs. Plonking everything down, he loosened his tie and walked on into the house.

The kitchen was his first port of call. A quick look in the fridge yielded a cheese platter and a rather small bottle of wine. The cupboard gave up its supply of water biscuits and the judge carried all of this to the wooden table, quite happily seating himself and getting on with the serious business of demolishing everything in front of him.

Until his cell phone rang. He put his hand inside his jacket, pulled it out, and laid it on the table. He saw the name and shook his head, choosing to ignore the shrill noise. He carried on slicing the cheese and laying it delicately on the thin cracker.

A massive crash made him jump in his skin. Tinkling followed - the sound of a shower of glass hitting the floor. He pushed himself up from the table and turned quickly. A dash to the drawers saw him snatch up a long knife. He hurried back to the phone table in the hall. His hand went into the dish and rattled spare coins in noisy panic. Some fell to the floor, others rolled around the wooden surface. His hand fished something out and squeezed it tightly.

He heard a low growl. He turned in a circle steadily, trying to see in the semi darkness. Nothing moved. He edged back to the table and picked up the house phone with his thumb and available fingers. He pushed buttons with trembling fingers as something moved, bumped on the stairs.

He crouched to be hidden by the desk as he heard the line connect. A woman's voice started to ask for his emergency.

"Yes - police. I need police. Someone's in my house. This is Judge Lanoux - 2324 Rosewater Boulevard." He gasped as the growling rumbled again - right behind his ear. "Help!" he cried. He dropped the phone and ran for the front door.

His feet were grabbed out from under him. He slammed into the wood of the door. Yanked down it at speed, he was flipped over onto his back.

And then it was pain, blood, screaming, and horror.

.


	5. I'm a Doctor, Not a Cleaning Lady

**FIVE**

 **I'm a Doctor, Not a Cleaning Lady**

.

June 15th, 2000

6:22pm

.

Scully opened up the plastic wrapper and slid the flapjack from the inside as she leant back in her chair. "I can't believe it took us over an hour to find food."

"It took us fifteen minutes to find food. And then ten minutes after that. And a few minutes after that. You were just too picky to eat at those places," Mulder said. He stuffed the remnants of a chocolate doughnut in his mouth. His right hand scooped up the waxed paper wrapper from the table and he rolled it up, then lifted both hands to lob it, basketball style, into Scully's empty coffee cup.

She smiled as he grinned to himself in victory. The sun, in the process of dipping toward the horizon, was still warm on her cream blouse, a lot of it kept at bay by the large parasol stuck through the centre of their table. The breeze was polite enough not to tousle her hair too much, although it did delight in pushing Mulder's into strange little crop circles. Their suit jackets were hanging on the backs of their chairs, Mulder's shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows, his tie slightly looser than it should have been, and if the top button on his shirt was undone, Scully decided it didn't constitute being out of uniform on such a warm day.

She looked away from him, toward the quiet road and the waving grass by the side of it. "They could be right, Mulder."

"About what?"

"About the ecosystem here. I mean… where do wolves go when you tarmac over their homes?"

"So you _do_ think it's a wolf?" he asked with a smile.

"Just… considering how it will fit into a report." She looked across the table at him. "You actually believe it's this peluda creature, don't you?"

"I do," he nodded. "It fits all the facts we have. So far, I haven't seen any evidence at all that it's not."

"Then how did it get here from France, Mulder? How has it survived for one hundred and fifty years without food - or growing old?"

"African bush elephants live to seventy years old - sea turtles can live up to a hundred," he said. "The _turritopsis dohrnii_ jellyfish literally cheats death; it regenerates into an immature juvenile of itself as it's dying - and it can do that over and over again. Some _scientists_ reckon there are some that are over a thousand years old, swimming around out there. Who's to say this peluda can't live as long?"

"Because the _turritopsis dohrnii_ jellyfish is real, Mulder. It's a scientifically proven creature that someone has documented."

"What if we document this peluda? Surely then it passes from myth into scientific documented fact?" he asked with a sly smile. "Maybe it'll even go from my 'unconfirmed true' box to 'scientifically confirmed' box."

Her eyebrows raised in a warning. "You had an X File on this peluda all along?"

"No - it's a new one on me. But that's the fun - that's the actual belief, that you haven't seen everything yet, that you can't. That's why you search - to find more, to uncover everything, to discover all the stuff that's about to rewrite your scientific journals or your rules of the universe."

"Wow," she said, deadpan. "Mark Twain?"

" _Doctor Who_ , actually. You know, they should really bring that show back."

She smiled and looked across the serene afternoon. "Well let's go find Agent McGivers. I'm sure she's sitting in that room reading all the papers we brought back from the library."

"I think she's been on her own too long."

"You can talk," she scoffed. "Given half a chance you'd be a stinking, unshaven mess under the desk in _your_ office, cataloguing and reading over and over. Your eyes would be ruined, accustomed only to the dark; you'd survive off pencil shavings and the water that leaks from the air-con unit."

"Pretty much," he chuckled. "I'll add that possibility to the number of times you've saved my life."

She smiled and opened her mouth but her phone sang a tale of urgency from her pocket. She pulled it out and pressed the button. "Scully," she said. "What? We'll be right there." She pushed it back into her suit pocket and stood up. She grabbed her suit jacket from the back of her chair.

"What is it?" Mulder asked. He got up and snatched up his jacket.

"Judge Lanoux is dead."

"How?"

She spared him a glance as she turned and looked around for the rental car. He made sure he had everything in his pockets before hurrying off toward the Ford. She jogged after him.

.

* * *

6:47pm

.

McGivers kept her hands behind her back as she paced around the police station, her black heels clicking sharply against the tiles.

The door crashed open and Scully came in. "What happened?"

McGivers' head tilted and for a second Scully expected her to cry. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come, and McGivers put her hands out to Scully's, making her stand still in front of her. "I'm so sorry," McGivers said. "Judge Lanoux was at home - he was attacked the same way as the others."

"Ok," Scully said cautiously, withdrawing her hands but steering McGivers to the chairs in the reception area. "Sit down, take a breath," she said.

The door swung open again and Mulder appeared, his jacket still in the car. "Where are we up to? Do we have a body yet?"

Scully looked over at him. "Mulder - go speak to the Sheriff."

"She alright?" he asked quietly.

Scully gestured behind him with her head. He turned away immediately and went up to the two people behind the reception desk. "Hi, uh, Sheriff Carson?" he said.

She turned from the male deputy currently trying to talk to her and also whomever was on the phone in his hand. She threw her hands in the air. "I don't know, Agent Mulder, I just don't. Judge Lanoux was driven home by Sylvie as normal. He got inside his house and locked the place up. The next thing we know, he's onto nine-one-one and they record his voice as he's being murdered."

Mulder looked behind him, at the two FBI agents still sitting on the chairs. McGivers had her hands in her lap. She stared at them intently as Scully spoke to her in low tones. She nodded as she rocked slightly backwards and forwards. Mulder looked back at Carson. "I'm guessing McGivers has already seen the body?"

Carson shook her head. "Nope. When we got the call she was here, filing. She did everything she was supposed to do - calmly, efficiently. Hell, my deputies here were running around like chickens with their heads cut off but she was a calm in the storm, getting everything organised. She was fine until your partner came in, and then she just… Like that."

Mulder nodded. "Stress response. People function just fine until the crisis is over, and then they have time to process what's happened and it hits them hard." He looked back at them. "Although she was ok in the morgue."

"Judge Lanoux's body is in there right now, Agent Mulder, but no-one's seen it except me and the EMTs who loaded him up," she said. He turned back to look at her. "We're trying to keep this quiet. Right now, the only people who know he's dead are my department and a couple of people who saw someone being put into the ambulance at his place. Now my pathologist is still suspended - and I doubt he'd want to come and do this after the way he turned his nose up at the others. Add to that fact he was a staunch supporter of the judge and his values. He's not going to want to do this."

"I'm sure Agent Scully could cope," he nodded. "We might need to separate Agent McGivers. Give her the night off while we get on with this."

"Whatever you think best, Agent Mulder - but I need all the help I can get."

Scully got up and walked up to the desk. "She's ok. She seems to be upset about the loss of life."

"She was fine with the others," Mulder said.

"That's what I was thinking. She may be blaming herself for another victim, as she hasn't seen the dead body - and hasn't been physically upset by one so far." She looked at Carson. "I'm assuming Doctor Fete is not available for an autopsy?"

"No he is not," Carson said, her hands on her hips. The deputy behind her put down the phone, but it then started ringing again. He snatched it up. Carson rolled her eyes. "I think the local paper just got a tip about an ambulance at Lanoux's house."

Mulder stepped to one side and gently took the phone from the deputy's hand. He stopped in mid-flow, non-plussed, as Mulder pulled the phone receiver toward him. "Who's this?" he asked sternly. "Uh-huh. Could you keep this line free for emergencies, please? This is a police station; we don't have time for gossip." He leant over and put the phone down. He looked at the deputy. "Anyone not calling about an emergency? You tell them that until further notice, Deputy… uh…" He looked at the name badge on the man's uniform. "Mouton."

The deputy, a sandy-haired man in his thirties, smiled. "Yes _sir_."

Mulder turned to look at Scully. "What do you want first, body or crime scene?"

"Both. I'll stay here and you go to the scene, see what evidence you can find out of nowhere," she said.

"Your third autopsy in as many days, Scully. You can't say this place is boring," he mused. The phone rang again and Mouton picked it up, as Mulder noticed McGivers standing up from her chair across the room.

She paced over slowly, her hands by her sides. "Agents," she said. "I'd like to help. Who'll have me?"

Scully glanced up at Mulder. "Perhaps you could go with him - he'll need help surveying the crime scene."

"Of course," McGivers nodded. "I apologise for my behaviour. It's just—"

"Don't worry about it," Mulder said, patting once at her arm as he tried not to listen to Mouton on the phone behind him. "I lost count of the number of times I tossed my cookies over a dead body back in the day."

Scully turned to Carson and the two women walked off, around the back of the station toward the morgue. Mouton turned to Mulder. "Uh, sir?" he asked nervously. "This isn't a reporter. This man says he saw some animal running across his yard."

Mulder moved to the counter and took the phone from him. "Hello. Yes. Can you describe the animal please, sir?" He looked at McGivers, his hand mimicking handwriting movements. She jumped slightly and then pulled her pencil free of her ear, grabbing up a pad from the desk. Mulder nodded quickly and then began to write something. "And what time was this, approximately? Uh-huh. Thank you, sir. Yes sir, I'll have it checked out. Oh I'm just helping the Sheriff's department, sir - extra hands and eyes. Yes sir. Thank you for calling in." He handed the phone back to the deputy. "If anyone asks, don't mention the FBI are here."

"Why not?" McGivers asked, taking back the pencil he offered her. "It would help to alleviate fears and communicate to people that we all take this very seriously, and are doing our best to stop more attacks."

Mulder raised his eyebrows at her. "Or it would make people think there's more going on here than just animal attacks." He looked at Mouton. "When was the last time the FBI actually worked a case here?"

"Uh… the seventies, I think," he said with a shrug.

"Nineteen eighty," McGivers put in. "May twenty-first, nineteen eighty."

"Wasn't that the day _The Empire Strikes Back_ came out?" Mulder said.

"I… don't have that information," McGivers managed.

"You surprise me," Mulder said dryly. He looked at the Sheriff. "Can you get a deputy out to this man?" he asked, handing her his written notes. "Get someone to take a statement, everything he can remember. It may be important," he said. She nodded and turned to the desk, picking up a phone. Mulder looked at Deputy Mouton. "If anyone else calls with animal sightings, you take every detail you can and you get someone to follow up, ok?"

"Yes sir," Mouton nodded. "Drive safe."

Mulder turned and waved a hand to the far door. McGivers pulled her jacket straight and walked off resolutely, but she went back to the chairs to pick up a bulky laptop bag first. Mulder thought for a moment, felt for the car keys in his trouser pocket, and then followed her out into the station parking lot.

He unlocked it as he approached and McGivers got in first, getting comfortable by pulling her skirt straight and then adjusting the notebook in the inside pocket of her jacket. She pulled her seatbelt on as Mulder slid into the driver's seat and did the same.

"Do you have the address?" he asked McGivers. He started the car, turned on the head lights, and began to back up.

"2324 Rosewater Boulevard," she said. "You take the main road up here, then follow Jefferson for about six miles. It's not far beyond that."

He glanced at her as he halted the vehicle and put it into Drive, heading out onto the main road. "Have you been there?"

"I've read the map," she said. He pulled out and the journey was silent for a few minutes. Finally she cleared her throat and looked over at him. "I am grateful."

"What for?" he asked, not looking away from the road, its tarmac desperately trying to soak up the last of the departing sun.

"For… you two more experienced agents coming in here and running the investigation." She paused. "And for… both of you overlooking my poor conduct."

Mulder smiled to himself in bemusement. "What poor conduct?"

"I'm afraid I let everyone down once the dreadful excitement was over. I just felt…" She shifted round slightly, to face him. "I met the judge. He was a nice man. And now he's dead. I cannot reconcile how both facts can be true."

Mulder glanced at her. "You didn't let anyone down. And… well… People die, whether they're good or not. What about JFK or Martin Luther King? They were good people, and they're both dead."

"Both were killed. Your examples are quite accurate."

"I didn't mean that, I meant… Good people die too. Otherwise the planet would be full of people who just go on and on," he said.

"Are these not ghosts?" she asked, surprised.

He turned his head and studied her for as long as his sense of self-preservation would allow. Then his eyes went back at the road. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"I do, Agent Mulder." She paused. "Do you?"

"I think… the dead speak to us, just in different ways," he said carefully. "You know… Agent Scully doesn't believe in this kind of thing. At least, she _says_ she doesn't."

"Ah, yes. So I have read." She sat up straighter, her tone more excited. "She is _magnificent_ , isn't she?"

"Excuse me?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly in its high tone of surprise.

"She performs her duties in an exemplary manner, and her reports are always logical, organised, and include all necessary detail but no more. She manages to do all this despite travelling around the Americas with you at short notice, and frequently being under-equipped by the bureau."

"Don't forget she does it all in high heels, too," he joked.

McGivers paused. Her head tilted as she studied his face. "What do you hope to achieve here, Agent Mulder?"

"Well catching whatever animal is eating people would be a good start," he said seriously. "And if it turns out to be a peluda that we can put on scientific record, then it's Miller time."

She frowned. "What is a miller?"

He glanced at her. "Never mind. How many crime scenes have you been to?"

"Not very many, I'm afraid. I am at your disposal, Agent Mulder."

The car drove on.

.

* * *

7:06pm

.

Mulder walked up to the Lanoux house, scanning the height, the width, and the yellow DO NOT CROSS tape lovingly wrapped around every egress imaginable. "Do you think they want to keep people out?" he quipped.

McGivers caught him up, carrying her laptop bag and juggling her notebook back into her inside pocket. "It's procedure for a crime scene."

Mulder swayed to look at her, then back at the front door. He produced a flick knife and got to work on the tape by the door handle. Slicing it all open was harder than it looked, but eventually he had enough free to get the door open. He ducked under the plethora of criss-crossed tape to squeeze in through the entrance. He stopped to one side, pocketing his knife and looking around. McGivers slithered in after him and they stood, surveying the huge lobby area, with its polished wood and large paintings.

Mulder whistled in awe. "I should have gone to law school."

McGivers turned and looked at the front door. "This is where it happened." What had been a long frosted window by the front door, through the natural existence of 4D, was now a wooden board nailed haphazardly in place. "Is this where the attacker entered?"

"Must be," he mused. He looked up and around the reception area. "Hey - look at that," he said, pointing straight up at a small black ball in the ceiling. "Smile; you're on Candid Camera."

"I do not understand."

He turned to look at the front door, then back at up at the ball. "I think… we may have the attack on film. We need to find the tape to this security camera. Maybe there's something good on it."

"I will try," she nodded. She set down her bag and walked deeper into the house.

"Shout if you find it," Mulder called after her. "We'll take it back to the station."

"We _should_ look at it together."

"Don't you have a special someone you should do that with?" Mulder said, wandering over to the phone table.

"I have no special people, Agent Mulder. I work alone."

He nodded at her slowly. "Riiiight. Well…"

"I shall endeavour to find the tape." She walked off.

Mulder raised his eyebrows, running a hand through his hair before he spun on the spot. He looked over the inside of the front door, not daring to touch the deep scratches in the wood. He put his hands on his knees to study them from a few inches away, his mind whirling with theories. Then he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his trouser pocket and slapped them on, crunching through tiny shards of glass to get to the door. He traced a finger down inside the very deep groove. He backed up and stood tall, his hands on his hips, to scrutinise the area around the door. He crouched to inspect the wooden flooring, then the wall beside the entrance. He shook his head and got up as he heard McGivers' shoes echoing down the wooden hallway.

"Found it," she said happily. "The machine was still running. I took out this one but put in a fresh tape."

"Because?" he asked, not looking away from the surround.

"In case anything further happens."

He backed up away from the door. "Do you notice anything strange about the markings here?"

She _click-click_ ed her way over to his side, her gloved hand around the black VHS tape. "There are multiple scratches," she observed. "Only on the door."

"There's nothing on the floor, nothing _around_ the door except broken glass. It's like the creature smashed through the glass panel there, left no prints and no hair, and just ate the man right on the welcome mat - again, leaving only scratches in the wood."

"Very strange indeed," she said quietly.

Mulder turned and went to the briefcase on the table with the phone. It was still hanging by its cord, dangling over the edge of the phone desk toward the floor. He crouched and checked the area, and then the floor.

McGivers straightened up from the door and turned to Mulder. "And you think this… peluda… did this?"

"What's your theory?"

"Well… I was thinking about what Agent Scully said, and… Maybe someone did let a wolf in here, on purpose, to kill Judge Lanoux. But why?"

"Assuming you're not buying the whole 'magic circle' theory, then freeing up that land would be a strong motive," he mused, picking up the phone to place it back in his cradle.

"You think this is over money? But with Judge Lanoux dead in such suspicious circumstances, the land deal is in limbo. Nothing can move forward until we solve this."

Mulder turned his head to pin her with a meaningful smile. "So it's someone who wants to halt the land deal."

"Oh." She looked at the floor. "You don't think it's because… he's African American?"

Mulder looked up and studied her for a long moment. "No. He was a judge for a long time. If someone had been averse to that, they could have killed him any number of ways, at any time. Besides, while Shirley Duchamp was also African American, Danny Petrus was pretty much settler-white. No pattern."

"'Settler white'?" she asked, confused.

He waved a hand at her in quiet dismissal. "I think it's an animal that's now free _because_ of the land deal. I think the land was protected for so long because the Babineaux family _knew_ it was here. If it had just been a bear or a wolf, then wouldn't the family just hunt it down and kill it?"

"Then you believe it is this peluda, and not an earthly animal. Have you dealt with many such cases before?"

Mulder turned back to the phone in his hand. He moved to put it down, but paused to study one edge. Then he sniffed it carefully. "Met a Wanshang Dhole once. Well, kinda."

"A what?"

Mulder sniffed at the receiver again, then stood up and reached inside his trouser pocket. He pulled out his phone and a quick dance with his thumb started the call. He put it to his ear as he inspected the receiver. "Hey, Scully. There's a black smudge on the phone, and it smells weird. I don't know, like…" He paused to sniff it again. "Kind of… citrus. Like the skin with the white flesh still on it - zest, thank you, that's the word I was looking for." He paused. "It may come as a shock to you that while I have a semi furnished bachelor pad I _do_ know what cleaning products smell like, and this doesn't smell like that - it's fresh, like the market." He listened. "No, like… You know that stuff under my kitchen sink? No not the blue one, the… Yeah, that's the one. It kinda smells like that, but… fresher. Yeah. Ok. I'll bag it and bring it in. How's the slicing and dicing going?"

McGivers listened to the conversation. She pulled her pencil free and produced her notebook, flipping to a new page and covering it in new strokes.

"Right. Well I'll bring this back for you to test," Mulder went on. "Ten bucks says it's the same mark that's on the two earlier victims, and I'm betting you find it on the judge, too. Official cause of death? Just the abdomen and intestines? Not the throat? So it's not a wolf, then," he added. "Ok. Yeah. Anything weird at _all?_ " He paused to listen. "In his hand? I'll take a look when I get down there. His fingernails, huh. Completely clean? Right." He cut the call and pocketed his phone. "Hey, uh… you got an evidence bag in your cub scout kit there?"

McGivers turned to look at him. "It's the standard FBI field kit."

He crossed to her and ripped open the velcro, pulling out a clear bag. "Thanks." He returned to the phone and went about disconnecting the receiver cord from the base and stuffing it all in.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

Mulder jerked the bag up and down a few times to get everything to settle closer to the bottom. He folded the top over and sealed it. "Seeing as we've already covered ghosts and cryptids tonight, you can ask me anything," he smiled.

"Do you and Agent Scully… socialise?"

Mulder turned and looked at her - just looked.

"I mean," McGivers said quickly, "when I started in the bureau, I was told that just because we have work partners doesn't mean we should talk about our cases after work." She huffed quietly. "I have worked with some _fascinating_ people, Agent Mulder, and yet I realise now I never really took the time to get to know any of them. I like and admire Sheriff Carson, and Deputy Mouton is friendly and efficient, and yet I don't even know their favourite foods, or colours. They don't know _mine_."

"Is it important that they do?" Mulder asked, surprised.

McGivers paused. "I do not think so. Or at least, I didn't. And then…" She looked at the notebook in her hands. "I notice you have more door keys than you need on the keyring that you have temporarily attached your rental key to. I have concluded that one of those is a spare to Agent Scully's apartment."

Mulder's mouth squirrelled to one side in serious thought. "And?"

"And it would be logical to conclude that if you have a copy to her home, then it would be very likely that she has one to yours." She paused and raised her eyes to his. "If either of you gets locked out of your own place of residence, then at least you know someone you can call to let you in."

Mulder nodded slowly. "Yes," he allowed.

"I am sorry, Agent Mulder. I have offended you somehow and yet I only wanted to… talk about something that wasn't the case."

"You haven't offended me." He wandered to the stairs behind the phone table and sat on the second one up. He put his elbows on his knees and set the evidence bag between his feet. "Let me give you some advice, McGivers."

"Please."

"Don't trust people too quickly. Go with your instincts, not the FBI manual. There _is_ no manual for real life."

"Some would argue that's what the Bible is."

"Some would argue that's why I send newspaper clippings to _The Fortean Times_."

"The what?"

"The point is, be careful of whom you trust. As a rough guide I'd say… trust no-one."

She considered this for a long moment. "Then why does Scully have a key to your apartment?"

"Someone has to feed my fish," he said slowly.

She studied him for so long, Mulder began to feel his face flushing with a sudden tide of inexplicable heat. But then she let out a small smile, and nodded. "I understand."

He got up. "Did you get all the notes you wanted?"

"Yes." McGivers looked around. "We should check the rest of the house for prints."

"We're not going to find any," Mulder said. "I think we've done all we can here."

"But we've only been here a short time."

"Yep."

"And all we have is a phone receiver that has a dark smudge on it and smells of cleaning chemicals."

"Yep."

"And that's it?"

"Yep."

"Then you _are_ convinced that a peluda was here, and killed the judge?"

"Pretty much," Mulder mused, going to the front door. "All we need now is the video footage of the attack."

McGivers went to the bag of items and collected it up, hurrying to follow the other agent out of the door.

.


	6. Like Nothing We've Seen Before

**SIX**

 **Like Nothing We've Seen Before**

.

June 15th, 2000

9:43pm

.

Scully opened the motel room door, carrying in the brown paper bags and a cup holder. "Food!" she called, turning to shut the door. It clicked closed and she went to the table under the window, setting everything down. She looked over at Mulder, sat on the edge of the single bed, reading something from a brown folder. "Hey - food. Hot food. The _only_ hot food available this time of night," she said loudly.

"Hmm."

She walked over and flumped down on the bed next to him. "What are you reading?"

"The police report. They didn't mention anything about a smudge or a smell."

"The only place I found traces of the scent we got from the phone receiver was on the judge. Not his clothes, not his personal effects, just his skin."

"His unexposed skin."

"Yes."

"Did the scent rub off on your gloves?" he mused.

"That's the weird thing - whatever caused it, I can't find a reason for it. And it doesn't rub off on anything - I had to take a skin scrape in order to isolate the scent for testing."

"And the smudge on the phone? Did it come off?" he asked.

"Not at all. At first I was worried I'd wipe it clean with my gloves just by handling it, but as it turns out… it will not be removed."

"And you found nothing under his fingernails - not the wood from the front door?"

"I tested everything I scraped from under his nails very carefully - there was absolutely no trace of wood under his nails. I would think he clawed pretty desperately to get out as something was dragging him backwards," she said. "But there was just nothing there." She paused. "Was McGivers ok at the crime scene?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah. She told herself to man-up - or no, _Scully-up_ and deal with it," he grinned.

She elbowed him but he chuckled to himself. " _Anyway_ ," she said, "I found the same smudge on Lanoux - on his back, this time. It wouldn't be removed either, and when I checked the other dead bodies to make sure, they all had exactly the same size and shape mark. However, there are no other links to each other."

"Hmm."

"Alright, let me see," she sighed, sticking her head directly between him and the report. "What are you obsessing over now?"

He lifted his head to avoid being hit in the nose. "The small fetish you prised from his cold, dead fingers."

"The what?" she asked, studying the photograph. It was a blue background - the side table of the morgue, covered in a spare scrub. Dead centre sat a narrow length of what looked like wood, cream in colour, tapering down to a sharp enough point. Wrapped in coils and coils of thread of all different colours, there were smaller shards of the same wood-like substance stuck out at odd intervals, falling downward to make it seem like a pine-cone made of ra-ra dress ruffles.

"This looks like a fetish - an object believed to have supernatural powers. Some people believe you can control other people, or other creatures, with things like these," he said.

"So what was Judge Lanoux doing with it?" Scully asked. "I mean when I pulled it out of his hand during the autopsy I thought he'd simply taken it from his attacker. When I got a good look at it, I thought it looked like a screen print he's got in his office. Isn't it some kind of adornment?"

"No."

She pulled her head back out of the way to see Mulder shaking his head slightly. "Well what do you think it is?"

"I've seen fetishes like this before. I think it's more for protection, or banishment, than costume jewellery."

"You're saying he thought that would protect him from your French porcupine-lizard?" she asked with a wry smile. "Some strips of wood tied together with a friendship bracelet?"

"This isn't wood," he said, under his breath.

Her smiled faded. "What is it?"

"I think it's… spines." He looked at her. "What if they're peluda spines? What if he was using them to keep the peluda _away_ from him?"

"Mulder…" She let out a long sigh. "What if they're wood? What if they're actual porcupine quills? We could play this 'what if?' game all night."

"Can we? Please?" he smiled. "I'll go first… What if you had a _real_ medical job instead of being tied down to a pathetic joke of a government agent, who keeps getting you into trouble which sometimes means you almost die?"

"Don't you bad-mouth Skinner, he's given us a lot of help over the years," she teased. He rolled his eyes and she got up, pushing at his shoulder before she walked over to the table by the window. "Eat something before it gets cold."

"I'll get it later."

"It's hot now."

"Congealed cheese is its own reward," he mused, his eyes back on the photos. "How'd it go with Carson - when is she going to let us view the tape that McGivers got from Lanoux's house?"

"First thing tomorrow," she said, opening up the bag and pulling out a large, heavy wrap.

"Has she finally come clean about why their own pathologist has refused to do any of the autopsies?"

She turned and carried the heavy wrap over to him. Her left hand took the folder from him as her right pushed the food so close to his nose that he jerked back out of fear of collision. "Eat this first."

"Why? What's in it?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.

"All you've eaten since last night is a doughnut," she said. He frowned at her. "It's a cheeseburger," she said, brandishing it closer to his face.

"Ok," he breezed, taking it off her, "but if you've drugged this to have your wicked way with me you'll have to work for it. I cleared the pipes this morning."

She rolled her eyes. "I really don't see what McGivers finds intriguing about you."

"She what?"

"She was asking me about you the moment you two got back from Lanoux's house," she shrugged. He unwrapped the burger and bit into it, considering the ingredients as she went back to the table. She sat and uncovered her own burger.

"What kinds of things was she asking?" Mulder asked round a mouthful.

"How I knew what cleaning fluids you have under your kitchen sink," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"McGivers asked me why we have keys to each other's apartments."

"What did you say?" she asked, turning the burger ready to bite.

"I said we put up with a lot of stress and unnecessary aggravation at work, and the only way to work it out was hot, angry sex for a minimum of two hours most evenings. You should have seen her face."

"Mulder," she tutted. "In case you hadn't noticed, she doesn't get your humour - _any_ humour. I don't think she knows how to take you, period." She paused as she noticed him grin. Her shoulders sagged all by themselves. "What did you _really_ tell her?"

"I said you fed my fish." He munched for a moment. "Have you got her figured out yet?"

"I think she's got a little bit of lost puppy syndrome," she sighed. "She seems to need someone to follow, at least until she knows what's going on."

"And that person is you?"

"Me? Hardly."

"Well she was gushing about how _magnificent_ you are, on the ride to Lanoux's house." He leant forward and whispered: "I think she has a crush on you."

"I was going to say that I think she has a crush on _you_." She bit into her burger and chewed for a second. "So we have a dead judge who has the same strange mark as the other two victims, we have the same smudge on the phone he was calling on at the crime scene, and video and audio evidence. Ready to see a grey wolf or Louisiana bear eat him on video?"

"If it really _is_ a wolf or a bear I'll give up on this whole damn belief system and become a bad sports writer," he managed around more burger. "Is Carson letting us use her office to view the tape and go over the phone recording?"

"Yes. She was very eager. I think _she_ thinks the killer is on the tape as bright as day, and we'll just arrest them and leave by lunch."

They went through their burgers in silent contemplation, until Scully rolled her wrapper up and tossed it back in the paper bag.

"So… Why did their pathologist not do the autopsies?" he asked.

She pulled the cup carrier toward her, slipping one paper cup out and opening the lid. "Carson said he refused to do it, based on some 'folktale'. Read into that what you will," she said with a sardonic smile.

"The ever-helpful Deputy Mouton on the desk said that 'old Lawrence' refused to do it based on the fact that whatever ate the two people that let it out did it for a reason, and everyone would be better off if they left it be."

"Deputy Mouton?" Scully asked. She sipped the coffee. "You're getting this from Mouton."

"He's a regular Chatty Cathy when you ask the right questions," he smiled.

"Did he tell you about Lawrence Fete's drinking problem too? And the more likely reason he refused the first two autopsies was because he'd been on the whisky all of the night before, rolled into work smelling like a distillery, and could barely look at metal without nausea, never mind a dead body?"

"He… failed to mention that about him."

She gave a slightly unctuous smile before finishing her coffee. She stood and collected up everything she had brought with her, leaving only Mulder's drink on the table. "Don't go obsessing about this all night. Get some sleep, Mulder."

"Keep your phone on," he said.

She waved a hand over her shoulder before she used it to open his door, and then close it behind her. Mulder looked at the table and the coffee on it. He got up and reached for it, sipping it. He made a face.

"Decaf," he muttered in horror as he set it down again. He looked up at the closed door with grumpy, dark intent. "Love you too, Scully."

.

* * *

June 16th, 2000

3:23am

.

A shrill bleeping cut the stillness. Scully jumped in her skin, cursed something, and ran her hand through her hair to trap it away from her eyes. The harsh ringing went on and on. She blew out a huff and rolled over. Her hand snatched up her cell phone from where it was languishing on the side table, smugly plugged in to charge its battery.

She pulled the cable out and pressed the green button without even looking. "What is it, Mulder?"

"Oh, hey Scully. Sorry to wake you. —Did I wake you?"

"What do you want?" she yawned.

"Uh… Judge Lanoux. Where did his entrails go?"

"Seriously?"

"Humour me."

She let out a tiny huff through her nose. "Most of his intestines and stomach had been ripped away - no trace was found of them, so I concluded that the animal that attacked him either ate them or carried them off to eat somewhere else, same as the others. It's all in the autopsy, Mulder."

"I know, I'm reading it." He paused. "Did it clean up after itself too, so there was no blood at the scene?"

"Maybe it's just a really efficient eater." She paused. There was no answer. "Mulder?"

"Hmm."

"Did you call me up to fall asleep at me?"

"No… I'm writing notes."

"At—." She twisted her neck round to see the clock on the side table. "At three in the morning?"

"It's 9am somewhere, Scully. England, I think."

She felt herself smile, then relaxed back into her pillow. "Why are you asking about entrails at UTC minus six hours, Mulder?"

"I just can't figure out how this animal - whatever it is - left only a smashed window to show it was ever there. There's no blood pattern where he was killed, is there? If someone gouged out the mid section of any adult human you'd expect buckets of blood on everything. But there was nothing. And the mark - it must be the creature leaving this on people. Maybe it's what the creature is tracking. Maybe Lanoux was rubbed in creature catnip - the smell - and marked by this smudge, and that's why only he was targeted."

"You're saying he was targeted now?"

"Well whatever did this left everyone else alone, Scully. The assistant in the car, the passers-by on the street, the people all over the parish. It just went for one person."

She shifted to be more comfortable, feeling herself curl around her pillow, and by extension, the voice on the phone. "And it's definitely this peluda creature that murdered him?" she teased.

"Still no evidence that it's not." He paused. "Have you seen McGivers' report on Judge Lanoux?"

"No - you've got it. Is there anything interesting?" she yawned.

"Other than he really is the grandson of Antoinette Lanoux? Nothing."

"Who is Antoinette Lanoux?" she asked, confused.

"Antoinette Lanoux was born Antoinette _Babineaux_ ," he said. "She died in childbirth, leaving behind Julia Lanoux - Judge Lanoux's mother. This makes Judge Lanoux the last surviving member of the Babineaux line. Add to that the fact that he was in possession of a protection fetish at the time of his death—"

"Mulder… seriously. How can you be this awake?" she yawned. "I mean I know you're the world's most driven man - _human_ \- but when exactly do you sleep?"

"That's what's bothering you about this?"

"Well, that and a few other things," she admitted.

"What bothers you, Scully? You can tell me. I don't have anyone to tell, and even if I did they wouldn't believe me."

She almost giggled. "Well… sometimes I wonder where the paintings came from in your apartment. They're quite… refined."

"And you're puzzled as to why a man who likes baseball and can barely heat up his own pizza would have something that classy in his apartment?"

"Well… kinda," she grinned. "I mean, I'm not trying to imply that you don't have classy things in your personal life—. Wait, do you even _have_ a personal life?" she teased.

"I have classy things - paintings on the wall, you on my couch drinking all my beer—"

"I do _not_ drink all your beer, Mulder."

"It's ok - when you do it it's _refined_."

She opened her mouth but made the question die on her lips. Then a smile bent them into happy resolve. "That's because I don't belch along to some baseball game's opening anthem like you can."

"Women have smaller diaphragms."

"I can belch just as loud as you, Mulder."

"Oh Scully - where have you been all my life?"

She grinned, rolling onto her back and looking up at the ceiling. The line went quiet, and slowly her good humour receded. "What bothers you, Mulder? Why can't you sleep? Why are you making it about the case?"

"It _is_ about the case." He paused. "Other times it's… I remember things. Turn them over in my head. I must have been about fourteen, I think. I started to think of other things to nitpick so I wouldn't keep going over and over my sister and… things."

She waited, but it was silent. "Mulder?" she breathed.

"Like, what if the smell of fresh bread when you cut into it is actually the bread screaming - like cut grass?"

She snorted in amusement. "Is it _what?_ "

"And how do cockroaches know to run above ground before an earthquake?"

She grinned. "This is _not_ what you think about."

"And why does de-icer for your windshield freeze again?"

"Mulder—"

"Why do Dachshunds skip when they walk?"

" _Mulder_ ," she managed on a happy sigh. "Stop thinking. Go to sleep."

"In a while."

"Now, Mulder. You need to be awake and at least pretending to pay attention when we watch that video tomorrow."

"You mean when we have to be big important FBI agents in front of the kooky assistant?"

"Yes, that," she smiled. She rolled to her side again, shuffling across, preparing herself for the stretch back to the side table. "Go to sleep."

"Do you remember when _we_ were that green?"

She hesitated. "Not really. So much has happened in my career, more so in the last… what, seven years? Sometimes I can't believe it's been so long. Other times… it feels timeless." She felt a cold cloak of gravitas closing over her. "Everything we've seen together, and lived through… The horrific and the strange…" Her voice became hushed, sad. "Those dreadful moments - the ones when we thought we were going to die, or be eaten by some flesh-eating virus, or salt water… or shot by some government spook. Sometimes I wonder… how do we keep the will to carry on?"

"Hey Scully… What you are wearing?"

She snorted out a giggle and pulled the phone from her ear. "Goodnight, Mulder." She pressed the red button and put the phone back on the side table. Getting comfy on her side, she pulled the blankets up around her. Her head pounded into the pillow a few times to make it conform, and then she felt herself relax.

The room was silent, serene, _refined_.

And then she huffed. "Dachshunds don't skip when they walk," she muttered, her eyes closed. She paused. "Do they?"

The resulting smile on her face lasted until well after she had succumbed to the softness of the bed, and the darkness of the room.

.

* * *

June 16th, 2000

8:48am

.

Scully carried the VHS tap into Carson's office, sliding it onto the table. "Here we go - everyone brace yourselves," she said.

Carson picked it up and went around her cluttered desk, stopping at a cabinet against the wall. She opened up the wooden doors to reveal a small television with a modest VHS player underneath. "Moment of truth," she said.

The door to the office opened again and Mulder and McGivers appeared. Mulder had his suit jacket over his arm and a totem of four coffees between his hands. "Sorry I'm late folks - I found a half-decent coffee shop and it would have been rude to drive straight past."

McGivers followed him in and shut the door. "I found him in the parking lot and made him hurry."

Scully raised her eyebrows, then turned to Carson. "Shall we?"

The office was not large but the four people found places to perch; Carson on the edge of her desk, Scully and McGivers in the two chairs reserved for guests, and Mulder against the filing cabinets at the back of the room.

The sheriff waited until four take-out cups of coffee had been shared out before clicking on the TV by remote and similarly revving up the VHS player. "What are we expecting to see?" she asked the room at large. "Do you think we have the killer on tape?"

"Undoubtedly," Mulder said from the back. "I just don't think it's the killer you want."

Carson spared him a worried glance, but then turned back to the tape. "So… what time was the murder?"

"The nine-one-one call was logged at five eighteen pm," McGivers supplied. Scully looked to her left and was not surprised to see the woman reading from her notebook, now installed on her knee.

Carson sped through the tape, watching the screen as the others took advantage of their coffee cups. She slowed as the time stamp in the top left corner hit five fourteen pm. The front door opened and she paused the tape, turning it to normal speed and resuming play.

The agents watched, transfixed, as Judge Lanoux entered his house, shut off the alarm, and closed the door. He gave the camera a sarcastic wave before dumping his briefcase on the telephone table and heading out of sight, to the left of the screen.

The minutes stretched on. McGivers began to lean ever so slightly forwards. Mulder's nose went into his coffee cup until it was well and truly empty. Scully's eyes bored into the black and white picture.

Carson tried not to fidget. "Come on," she tutted. "Any time, please."

The time stamp showed five eighteen. Suddenly a white shower of small objects splashed over the bottom right of the screen; McGivers leant forward more, her scribbling moving across her notebook without her attention. Mesmerised, the room watched as a large, spiny animal popped up from the bottom of the screen. It shook itself free of small white items like a dog in the rain. Its long, sinewy neck wobbled as its head turned ninety degrees left and right so fast it reminded Scully of a solution shaker in the lab. It paced forward, sniffing the air. More body appeared until the hind legs were clearly visible, and a tail began to whip behind it as it widened its front legs and bulked up its stance.

"Oh my god," Scully whispered. "What _is_ that?"

"Looks like a lizard," Carson said in hushed tones. "But what kind of lizard has porcupine quills?"

The creature leapt across the screen. It settled on the stairs at the top. Judge Lanoux ran in, a long kitchen knife in his hand. His hand scuffed a small object on the table and then he lifted it slightly in his hand. He palmed it before picking up the phone and dialling. It was as he began to talk that the creature shuffled behind him on the stairs. He jumped and dropped the knife to make a run for the front door.

Arcing gracefully through the air, the animal landed by his feet. Its head went down and simply bowled his legs out from under him. He grasped desperately for the doorknob. Its front paws went into the wood by his head and then ripped down and backwards. He was yanked down, on his front, flat on the floor.

McGivers put a hand over her eyes. As Scully, Mulder and Carson watched in restrained revulsion, the creature flipped the man over and its jaws went straight into his mid section. Nothing spilt, nothing was thrown from the victim as he thrashed and fought. The creature simply put its front paws on his wrists to trap them to floor. Its hind feet went to his knees and, suitably pinned, Lanoux's struggles became weaker and weaker. Eventually he flopped down on his back and lay still.

"I think we have all we need," Mulder said quietly.

McGivers split her fingers to see out. "Where's the blood?" she asked.

Carson shook her head at it all. They watched as the animal consumed something from the body, its four feet still spread in such a way as to keep the corpse still. After some minutes it lifted its head. It looked around, as if noticing something by the phone table. It backed off the remains of the body and went up to the swinging telephone.

"Can it hear the operator?" Scully wondered. It nudged at the phone receiver with its nose.

"There," Mulder said suddenly. "That's how the mark and the smell got there."

"But how did it get on Lanoux?" Scully asked. "It hasn't touched his back, and that's where I found it."

"If I'm right, it marked him during the day," Mulder said. "It used the smell of that mark to find him again later."

"Why wait till it was getting dark?" Carson asked. "Surely an animal would just hunt and kill its prey when it was hungry."

The creature padded back to the body. It shook again, as if wet, and then walked directly over the body to leave the way it came in, somewhere off the bottom right of the screen.

McGivers sat back. "You were right, Agent Mulder," she said in awe. She twisted to look at him. "It _is_ a peluda."

"Whoa - you know what this thing is?" Carson asked. "I'm DeSoto Parish born and raised, and I've never seen anything like that. Where the hell did it come from?"

"Europe," Mulder said.

"Now hold on," Scully said, spreading her hands. "We're not sure this animal _is_ in fact the one from your fairytale, Mulder. And even if it is, it doesn't tell us how to find it."

"Scully - you just _saw_ it, on the screen," Mulder urged.

"We saw a lizard with spines on the screen," she argued. "We have to catch this thing and stop it killing anyone else."

"So what's its motive?" Mulder asked. "It went for the two construction workers and it went for the judge. Why only them?"

"Wait - are you saying this animal is choosing its victims?" Carson demanded. "Like… actually thinking about it and choosing?"

"You've seen the evidence," Mulder said.

"Have we, Mulder?" Scully asked. "You said yourself - it's marking and then attacking its victims. So far, the three victims are not in the same class, the same job, the same part of town - or even gene pool."

"I think we should take a closer look at that plot of land," Mulder said. "Maybe seal it up again."

"But the creature is already free and outside of the magic circle," McGivers said innocently.

Carson slid off her desk to stand up. "Magic circle?" she intoned.

Mulder straightened up. "This thing was trapped on Babineaux land and now it's free. It's killing people and we need to get over there and find out why - find out what's setting it off." He went to the door.

Scully got up. "I want to see this."

McGivers stood too. "I shall stay and listen to the nine-one-one call. If Carson and I sync them up, we will have audio to this security tape."

"You do that," Mulder nodded. "Call me if you find anything."

"At once, Agent Mulder," she said, inclining her head.

He did a double-take but Scully walked up to the door and put a hand to his elbow. She pushed him toward the exit and he opened it up and disappeared. She offered the other two women a brief smile and closed the door behind her.

.


	7. Prime Directive

**SEVEN**

 **Prime Directive**

.

June 16th, 2000

9:36am

.

Scully got out of the passenger side of the car, taking off her suit jacket and leaving it on the seat. Feeling the pleasant warmth breeze around her, she fished in the side pocket of the car door for a wad of plastic evidence bags and a pair of gloves.

Mulder was already out of his side of the vehicle. His jacket on the back seat, he had rolled up his sleeves; he waited by the bonnet for Scully to close the door.

"Ready," she said. "Where first?"

"I want to see where they broke the boundary line," he said. "What are you after?"

"Anything out of the ordinary." She elbowed the door shut and pulled on the gloves. He nodded to himself and wandered away as she carried the bags with her past the now righted digger.

Mulder went straight to the gaping wound in the earth. He crouched, adjusting the gun holster at the back of his belt, before putting his hands to the ground and peering over the edge. He shifted to sit on the edge and then slid off into the hole. Finding it only up to his waist as he had suspected, he crouched again to inspect the base of the dig. Dried soil met his interrogation and gave nothing away. A prod and a few stabs with a pen from his pocket did nothing to further his cause. He stood up again, looking around. Shaking his head, he backed up to think about how he would get out again. Something prodded him in the lower back.

He whirled quickly.

And then remembered he was up against a soil wall with a gun strapped to him. He sagged all over and just put his hands to the edge, hauling himself up and out of the hole. Dusting off his palms, he looked around. The slight wind played with his hair, pushed at his tie, tickled at his arm. He turned into the current and took a deep breath, appreciating the sun, and humidity, and relaxed atmosphere to the land, despite the dark cloud hanging over the whole situation.

"Mulder?"

He looked over at the call, and without thinking crossed the scratchy grass toward its source. His hand went to the door of the longhut and he opened it up, sticking his head inside. "What have you found?" he asked.

Scully was crouching in the corner of the room, a desk to her left, the wall to her right, her back to him. She didn't turn or move. "Come look at this," she said, pre-occupied.

He walked around to slither in between furniture. He stopped and towered over her from behind, trying to see. "What is it?"

"Look."

He was forced to crouch half behind her, half to her right. He had no trouble looking over her lower shoulder. His hand went up against the wall to keep him from falling into her. "What?"

"Scratches," she said, as if it should be obvious. "I don't remember these being in the sheriff's report."

"You're right." He let go of the wall to bring his hand down, aiming to touch at the deep gouges in the wood.

She grabbed his wrist. "I have a swab kit in my pocket."

"Aw, Scully. And I thought you were just happy to see me."

She let go of his arm so her left hand could go into her jacket pocket. "We need to check by the excavator too - there could be something left close to where Daniel Petrus was found."

"I'm on it." He got up and disappeared.

Scully pulled the plastic box from her pocket and opened it up, concentrating on filling the scratches with the provided liquid and soaking up the results.

.

* * *

12:00 noon

.

McGivers looked up from her notebook, checked her watch, and put down her pen. She turned to the black phone on her desk and picked it up to dial.

She listened to the tone. It clicked and she waited for the voice.

"Report."

She took a deep breath. "Subjects are responding as expected."

"Then we do not need them."

"However… this case is destroying indigenous wildlife. The subjects are necessary to protect it."

There was a long pause. "And how do you come by that conclusion?"

She let out her breath. "Local enforcement is not prepared. Without the two subjects specifically this matter will not be resolved."

"We hardly need them both. The female is not needed; from your report she is not furthering the investigation."

"I do not concur, with your assessment of my report nor her performance. She has provided facts and clues where the male could not," she said stiffly. "She is vital to this investigation. Without her, the other subject would not function."

"Are you sure of this?" came the surprised response.

"Unquestionably."

Another long pause. "Then… you may keep both subjects. Keep us apprised."

"Of course."

The line clicked. She put down the phone. She scowled.

And then Agent McGivers got up out of her chair, her notebook in her hand. She stalked to the door, and if she closed it rather too loudly behind her, there was no-one there to notice.

.

* * *

12:43pm

.

The door to the morgue's office opened and Scully looked up from her stool. Mulder strode in and threw down his suit jacket to lean back against the filing cabinet, folding his arms to the accompaniment of a good strong huff.

Scully raised her eyebrows at him. "What now?"

"No-one found anything around Daniel Petrus' body," he grumped. "No-one bothered to look."

"Well…" She swung the stool away from the work station, stopping it with a boot heel on the tiles. "I can confirm that residue of the same type as the black 'smudge' was in the scratches in Judge Lanoux's front door. And it was also in the scratches down by Shirley Duchamp's body. Neither of them have any signs of being painted on or marked." She paused to fold her arms. "I can't explain why the only thing in those scratches in both places was the black material that appears to be on their bodies. I can't tell you what it's made of and I can't tell you how it got there."

"We both saw the tape, Scully. The peluda overshot him as it tried to grab him and scraped giant scratches into the door. It probably did the same with Shirley Duchamp. But how it left black material in there and not DNA…"

"Like I said," she said calmly, "I can't explain it."

He huffed. "Well we'll never know if Daniel Petrus had the same phenomenon. And we still don't know what's causing this thing to choose its victims to mark them in the first place."

She let her arms drop. "Then we'll have to—"

The door flew open and both agents jumped and looked over. McGivers was holding onto the door handle as if for stability. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully - there's been another one," she gasped.

"Another attack?" Scully asked. She got to her feet, peeling off the white lab coat and picking up her black jacket.

"Yes," McGivers managed. "It's Sylvie - Sylvania Morin. She was—"

"Lanoux's assistant," Scully interrupted. "I think we've found our link, Mulder - everyone connected to that land deal is being targeted."

"Then why the two construction workers?" he argued, even as he followed the two women out of the room. "They didn't decide anything, they just started digging."

"Maybe it's like you first theorised," McGivers said over her shoulder as she strode down the corridor. "The peluda is taking revenge. It started with the two workers, and is now tracking down people who have colluded to keep it trapped all these years."

"Colluded?" Scully echoed.

They reached the reception foyer of the police station to see people busying around, phones ringing off the hook, and Carson with her hands on her hips in the middle of it all.

"Alright, people!" she called. "Stop what you're doing and listen up!"

The deputies, all five of them, froze. The three FBI agents simply waited.

"Now," Carson went on in a booming voice, "we got another death. Yes, we knew Sylvie. Yes, we're all upset and we thought we'd have more to go on right now. But we _will_ find out who's doing this, and we _will_ stop them doing it again. Do you get me?" There were nods and muted 'yes'es around the room, and Carson nodded to herself. "Then we help these agents with _anything they need_ , and we get this whole thing solved - _today_ ," Carson barked. This time everyone managed a firm 'yes', and Carson turned to look at the agents. "Anything at all," she said firmly.

Mulder looked at Scully. "Go look at the crime scene, do the usual. Take McGivers. I've got something I want to follow up on."

"What is it?" McGivers asked.

"I'll fill you in later," he said, already pushing politely through them and heading for Carson.

Scully looked at McGivers. "Let's get to the scene."

.

* * *

5:02pm

.

Scully took off her protective glasses and backed away from the autopsied form of Sylvie, now laying at rest under the white sheet. She turned away from her work and prepared the locker, then went about transferring the corpse to the gurney and slotting it into cold storage.

She gathered up her things, leaving the white coat on the back of the door, and stepped out slowly, pushing hair behind her ear as she walked up the corridor. She put her hand in her pocket and found her cell phone. Without looking her thumb went over the buttons and she put it to her ear. "Mulder? It's me. Where are you?"

Something dragged over the other end and then his voice was clearer. "I'm working on something. Can I call you back?"

"I've finished the autopsy. I'll have a report for you later."

"Thanks." The line went dead.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket and turned the slight corner in the corridor, coming out at the reception area. McGivers and Carson were deep in some kind of discussion. She approached warily, noting both people were somewhat angry.

"Everything… ok?" she asked slowly.

Carson stopped and turned, looking down at Scully. "What's going on here?"

"Uh… I just got here," Scully managed. "How do you mean?"

"I mean this is the first time I've had to get trank guns out of the store, Agent Scully."

"Oh- _kay_ ," she managed.

McGivers folded her arms. "I believe we should not kill this creature, Agent Scully. I believe we should trap it and study it."

Scully cleared her throat, shifting her weight in her high heels. "It's killed four people."

"It would be like shooting a tiger for getting free and eating someone," McGivers said quietly, but nevertheless firmly.

Scully's head titled. "I see your point. But in this case, I think the only option would be to put it down. We know tigers, we know how they react. We know nothing about this creature."

"Exactly my point," McGivers said. "We need to trap it and examine it, find out what it is, how it has survived, and how it thinks." She paused. "You're a scientist - why don't you agree?"

"I am a scientist, that's true," Scully said. "However, I've been doing this a while and sometimes you have to make a decision based on the likelihood that keeping specimens for research may be more dangerous than destroying that specimen."

McGivers frowned. "But this could be the only one in existence."

"So if we put it down, we prevent any further danger," Scully said.

"We also commit genocide."

"It's not genocide if it's one animal."

"It is if it's the _only_ _one_ of that animal left," McGivers shot back.

Scully folded her arms. She looked up at Carson, who was still quietly seething. Scully shook her head. "I understand your concerns, Agent McGivers, but—"

"You're a _doctor_ , Agent Scully. You took an oath to protect life. Why are you so intent upon killing this one?" McGivers argued.

Scully let out a slow, cool breath. "It has killed four people. It will continue to kill people. If we trap it and have it shipped off to wherever we decide so it can be studied, how can we be sure it won't get free and kill more people? How do we know it will even survive in captivity?"

McGivers looked away, to the far wall. "I just… I just expected you to want it to live." She paused. "It's something's family, something's infant."

Scully felt her expression go very taut and very still. Her eyes felt raw and dry, the blood draining from her face, her limbs. She made herself straighten up. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

McGivers looked back at her, surprised. "I only meant… It's alive, and it's thinking, and it's obviously a feeling, sentient creature. I just… I expected you to recognise that and… act accordingly."

The feeling returned to Scully's face. "Yes," she managed. "Yes, I do. But I also recognise that every one of these deputies around us has a family, and is a living, breathing person, too. And I don't want to have to visit their family in the future to tell them that the deputy has been taken from them because we didn't want to kill one factually dangerous animal."

McGivers looked at her for a long moment. Eventually she nodded, and her eyes swept down. "I see. Yes, I see. I'm sorry. Thank you." She paused. "Excuse me."

She turned and walked away. Carson watched her go, shaking her head. Then she looked at Scully. "I don't get her. She's been working away in that office of hers for years. She seems to know most folks around here - most of them know who she is. And yet she wants to trap this thing for science, not just put it down and save those same folks."

"I think she just wants to know what it is," Scully mused, her eyes narrowing.

Carson scoffed. "Well it's a good job you talked her down, Agent Scully - I was on the verge of knocking some sense into her the old fashioned way."

Scully shook her head as if to clear it. "Well. I need to write up my notes. How's the operation going?"

"We're getting deputies out on the street right now. They're all carrying hunting rifles. I'm not going to apologise."

"No, it's the right response," she said, but something made her look across the room to where McGivers had just left. She rubbed her forehead and then looked up at Carson. "You have my number if you need me. Alert me the moment anyone sees anything."

"Oh I will, Agent Scully."

She nodded and went out of the exit, finding McGivers by her own car. Scully wandered up slowly, and McGivers looked up.

"Oh, hello," she said politely. "I don't see your rental car out here. Do you need a lift to the motel?"

"Agent McGivers… I'm sorry if I came down hard on you," she sighed.

"No no - it's not that," she said quickly. "I just… I guess I was putting my own need to see this creature, clearly and in provable terms, above everyone's safety."

"I know someone like that," Scully quipped. "And yes, I'd like a lift to the motel. If it's not too much trouble."

McGivers smiled and got in the car, Scully going around to the passenger side and climbing in. McGivers started it up and reversed around, before heading for the main road. "Can I tell you something?"

Scully looked at her. "If you feel you must."

"I like cars. And I like taking people places. It's time travel, isn't it?"

Scully smiled. "Time travel?"

"Yes. We're moving you into the past by driving and not making you walk."

"How do you figure?" Scully smiled.

"If you walk to the motel, it's about forty-five minutes. You would arrive there at…" She glanced at her watch. "Just about six pm. But by giving you a lift, you will be there about five twenty pm. So I've moved you back from six to five twenty. You've gone back in time forty minutes."

Scully let herself chuckle. "That's one way of looking at it."

"Is there another?"

Scully let out a long wheeze of thought. "I think… you and Mulder would be the last ones left at every party, talking about existential problems and time travel, and how the mundane in us all points to the remarkable in the universe."

"No we wouldn't," McGivers said confidently as she flipped the indicator and turned right. "He would already have left the party with you."

Scully's mouth opened but stalled. She looked back at the window, her eyes catching the safety mark on its surface. Suddenly it was the only thing she was sure of.

"Mulder is _fascinating_ , isn't he?" McGivers went on. "He's self-destructive and yet he attempts to look after his health. He wants to know _everything_ , and yet he doesn't want to know how it ends. It's intriguing."

"Really," Scully managed.

"Oh yes. Don't you think?"

"We have… worked together a long time," she allowed. "Sometimes you don't see someone as… Well, as anything more than what's in front of you. They're just… a constant thing in your life that you know will always be there, a friend you trust - maybe the _only_ friend you trust - amongst all your work colleagues."

"And of course he adores you," McGivers went on.

Scully's eyebrows raised in bemusement. "I don't think so." Her gaze went back to the window mark.

"He watches you do autopsies because he knows they'll be correct," McGivers went on. "He goes through your notes about the case and he appreciates the straight forward way you do things, and your ability to put things in perspective. He relies on all these things. He trusts your judgement. —And he likes your perfume but he would never tell you."

Scully's mouth fell open. "What are you basing this on?" she asked, hearing her voice come out a little sharper than she had anticipated.

McGivers glanced at her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Sometimes my mouth runs away with me." Her hands gripped the wheel a little tighter. "But… I _am_ right, Agent Scully. I _have_ seen these things." She cleared her throat quietly. "It's what I do."

"Psych evaluations on fellow agents?" Scully asked, forcing the samba beat in her temples to slow.

"I do apologise if I have made you angry. Although… I do wonder what it was I said that _made_ you angry."

"You didn't—." Scully sighed. "It's been a busy few days. And to be honest, I'm a little angry that we haven't caught this creature yet. I'm angry that Sylvie Morin was killed while we were still looking for clues. And that's all."

"I understand," McGivers nodded. "Oh." A slow smile spread across her face, but it was silent for the next few minutes. At last she flicked on the indicator again and turned across the road. "Ah, here we are - the motel." She turned the vehicle into the parking lot. As she smiled to herself.

.

* * *

10:17pm

.

Scully flipped the report shut, slipping off her glasses and closing the lid of her laptop. She gave a stretch and then pulled her strappy top straight. Picking up her phone from the bedside table, she squinted it at to find the battery was almost flat. She tutted and reached down the side of the bed to retrieve her charging cable. She plugged it in, waited for it to show life, and set it down.

She gathered up the autopsy files and the crime scene notes and placed them on the side table too, plugging in the laptop to charge and dumping it on top. Bouncing across the bed in her pyjama trousers caused her feet to hit the floor eventually. She got up and padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

A shrill bleating started up from the cell phone.

"Oh come on!" she called through the door.

By the time the toilet was flushed and her hands washed and dried, the phone had long since stopped. She crossed to the table but before she could pick it up, the black rotary phone next to it began haranguing the room with its unpleasant noise.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Scully? It's me."

"Where have you been, Mulder?" she sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed and pushing her hair round her ear.

"Alexandria."

"Who?"

"Alexandria - I had to check something out. You know I said the peluda is marking its victims, with the scent and the black smudge?"

"Yes," she said, shifting back on the bed to bring her legs up and cross them in front of her.

"Well I thought if we could find out how it follows it, maybe we could use the smell to try to draw it to us. We still haven't figured out how it's marking these people, or why, so how are we going to stop it doing it again?"

"All good points," she said. "So you want to make it come to us? How?"

"Well you have samples of the smell back at the sheriff's office, right? Can't we use that somehow?"

She paused. "What exactly did you find in Alexandria, Mulder?"

"Someone who knows a lot about peludas, and how to stop them chowing down on you when you don't want them to."

"Really," she smiled. "And would this someone be into voodoo?"

"Don't knock strong protection magic till you've had a chance to survive because of it," he replied with amusement in his voice.

"Fine. Show me proof that this someone has helped us solve this case and I can tell Sheriff Carson to recall all her deputies from animal attack duty."

"What?"

"She has all her deputies patrolling the parish, keeping an eye out for this creature," she said, seriously now. "They've got orders to shoot it."

"What? How will we know what it is if they kill it?" he demanded.

"From the corpse, Mulder," she said firmly. "We can't control it, and we can't stop it. But we _can_ kill it and study it - document it for scientific record, like your jellyfish."

There was a long pause.

Then a small sigh. "You're right." He paused. "But they need to know what she's taught me about these creatures - normal bullets won't kill them. They have to be silver."

"Silver? Mulder, come on - they're not werewolves."

"Silver is toxic to them, Scully. Feel free to shoot it with the government-issue stuff but I'd rather you didn't - I don't want to have to explain that to your family at your funeral. Your brother hates me as it is."

She couldn't help a small smile. "Then we'll ask Sheriff Carson about silver bullets, too."

"And we need samples of the smell, to lay a trap for it."

"I'll get those ready in the morning. Then I guess well kill this thing and we can go home." She waited, but there didn't seem to be anything else forthcoming. "Mulder?"

"Yes, Scully?"

"Do you…" She paused. "Forget it. Go to sleep, Mulder."

"Yes, Scully."

The line clicked and she looked at her receiver. "Perfume," she tutted. Then she paused as there was another click on the line. She put it back to her ear and frowned. She opened her mouth to ask - but then froze.

Very slowly she put the receiver back down. She looked up, around the room, checking the corners of the ceiling. She stole away from the bed, picked up her room key, and slipped out of the door.

She went straight to the door marked 'Eight' in cursive letters and knocked softly.

Nothing.

She knocked again, louder.

Finally the door opened to Mulder, wearing only jersey basketball shorts and a puzzled frown. "Oh. Hey Scully," he began.

She reached up and slapped a hand over his mouth. He stumbled back and she pushed him in, closing the door with her foot. He grabbed her arm for balance but she pushed him back until the bed hit him in the back of the knees. He slumped to the blankets, staring up at her in confusion.

She hastily re-applied her hand to his mouth. He raised a single eyebrow.

.


	8. Who Watches the Watchers?

**EIGHT**

 **Who Watches the Watchers?**

.

Scully frowned down at Mulder, who was currently sitting on his bed with her hand firmly clamped over his mouth and one of his eyebrows raised in amusement.

She pointed to the phone on his bedside table. His face turned decidedly more serious. She let go of his mouth and picked up the phone, putting it to her ear. Then she held it out to him.

He leant forward and listened. A few clicks went by and he looked up at her, alarmed. She nodded and replaced the receiver.

He got up and jerked a thumb at the en suite bathroom. She went in first. He followed and shut the door.

She leant over the tiny tub and started the shower. He turned on the taps in the sink. She turned to look up at him. He was almost touching the door behind him, but the room was small enough that with the backs of her legs against the edge of the bathtub, there was barely a foot between them. The sound of a hammering shower gave the tiny space a safety soundtrack, backed up by the softer swirling sink.

"Well?" he asked quietly.

"I can't be sure whoever bugged our phone isn't also bugging the rooms," she whispered. "What the hell, Mulder?"

"Well it's not Carson - I doubt she needs to follow us around." He put his hands on his hips. "Do you think it's the bureau?"

"For what?" she whispered. "They know where we are - they _sent_ us here."

"Could it be our old smoking friend, spying on us for the fun of it?" he glowered.

She huffed. "Who knows? I think we need to do all of our planning, all of our notes, away from prying eyes. Someone wants to know everything we do, _as_ we do - about a simple animal attack case. Something's wrong."

He thought for a moment, looking at the steadily sluicing sink. Then he looked back at her. "If we change rooms whoever it is will know we're onto them - we'll have to just carry on as if we don't know."

"Agreed," she nodded.

"What if it's McGivers?" Mulder ventured. "She likes taking notes."

"But she works for the FBI."

"So do we."

She considered the noisy water in the sink. "I don't get what's so important about this one case," she whispered.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Well until we do, we do the usual."

"The usual?" she asked, looking up at him.

"We stick to ourselves. We share nothing that's not vital, and we work this case between us."

"You and me versus the world?" she smiled.

"The universe."

She grinned, looking at her feet. His hand squeezed her shoulder, then let go. She nodded. "Ok. But you make sure McGivers isn't psycho-analysing everyone and putting it down in her notebook."

"What?"

"You haven't noticed?" she asked. "It's like she's profiling you - and me. She was quite in-depth about you in the car on the way here tonight."

"What does that mean?"

"I think she knows more about you - and me - than she's letting on." She paused, then looked up at him in sudden realisation. "The files in her office about us, and other agents. The notes she takes. The way she gets us to talk about each other. That's what's happening here, Mulder - she's profiling us - maybe _everyone_."

"For who? Skinner? He's probably sick of the sight of us by now."

"It could be anyone." She paused, then tilted her head. "Mulder, you need to be more careful. You just opened your door without checking who it was."

"I knew it was you," he shrugged.

"How?"

"Smelt your perfume," he said. She opened her mouth but a reply wouldn't come. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing, it's… nothing. It's fine." She turned to the sink and turned off the taps. He shuffled to squeeze behind her, and then reached out to the shower controls, and she felt his hand in her side to keep him upright as he leant over to turn it off. He straightened up again and his hand was gone.

Suddenly her side felt colder.

She went for the door. "You're in charge of breakfast," she said clearly.

"Just go," he said. She smiled but he indicated the shower behind him with his thumb. "All that running water made me want to pee."

She went out quietly and shut the door, going across his room and out. She closed the main door behind her, producing her key to open her own door. She turned and looked back at the closed door. Then she shook her head and opened up her own, going in and locking it securely behind her.

.

* * *

June 17th, 2000

11:09am

.

Sheriff Carson sat down behind her desk, placing a steaming mug of coffee on the surface and looking up at the three agents filing into her room. "Well… We were out all night - all of us, in shifts. We didn't see a damn thing."

"And you won't," Mulder said. "I believe this creature is avoiding people - it's got a hit-list and it's only coming out to kill the people _on_ that list."

"Really?" Carson asked, but everyone could see the yawn fighting for control of her face.

" _I_ believe," Scully said firmly, "that we've been looking at this all wrong. Whoever wanted to scupper this land deal has released this animal. We need to find out who that might be."

"Well," Carson said, "our records at the parish town hall are available to you."

"Thank you. Agent McGivers, would you please go through all the records and find out everyone who's connected to this deal?" Scully asked.

"I'd love to," she said, surprised. She turned to the door and, offering Scully a warm smile, disappeared out.

Scully paused to look up at Mulder. "So what's your plan?"

Mulder turned to the sheriff. "Do you have any deputies trained in trapping animals?"

"This is Louisiana, Agent Mulder," she smiled. "I have two deputies trained in catching alligators. Biggest one I ever saw was twelve foot long and the carcass weighed over four hundred and fifty pounds - so if you think you're gonna blame these murders on a 'gator, you're dead wrong."

"Not at all," he said with a smile. "I just need people with experience in trapping large, dangerous animals - using scent."

"Scent? We got a dog - one of the deputies uses her. She's our tracking animal."

"You misunderstand me, Sheriff - I want to use the scent to make it come to us."

She studied him for a long moment. Then she began to smile. "Well I think that'd be a great idea. When you do want to start?"

Scully pulled a plastic evidence bag out from behind her. "We're going to plant this, and then when it comes to us, we kill it."

Carson eyed the bag. "Is that a phone?"

"It's the phone receiver from Judge Lanoux's house," she said. "It's covered in the same scent that I found on four dead bodies - Sylvie had it too, as well as a mark on the back of her leg."

"So you're saying it'll smell that and come running back for it?" Carson asked.

"It _should_ ," Mulder said. "There's one more thing we need."

"And what's that?" Carson asked.

Mulder looked at Scully. She rolled her eyes slightly in helplessness. He turned back to Carson. "We need silver bullets," he said. Carson looked at him, her eyebrows going up so high they were in danger of setting an altitude record. He cleared his throat. "It's toxic to the peluda, and it'll put it straight down," he said.

"Is that so? Agent Mulder, over the years I've come to notice that more things find _lead_ more toxic, especially when they're shot with it."

"Please, humour me on this," Mulder said.

She considered him. She looked at Scully. Finally she looked back at Mulder. "Well whether I believe you - or humour you - or not, there's nothing I can do about it anyway," she said, with something of a sigh. "We just don't have silver bullets lying around, and I wouldn't even know where to get some made."

"I do," Mulder said. He went to the door of the office, but then paused as if only just remembering other people were still in it. "Oh, ah… I may be a while. Can you two set this up?"

"We'll manage," Scully said dryly. He nodded and went out of the door.

Carson picked up her coffee and sipped it slowly. "He's a funny one, that Mulder."

"Funny how he's often right," Scully said, as if to herself. She turned to the sheriff. "I'll need some deputies to help me set up a trap, a perimeter. We'll need at least two observation hides and volunteers to take shifts, to watch for this animal's arrival."

Carson sipped more coffee. "Oh trust me, Agent Scully," she said slowly, "you're going to get everything you need so we can finally put this thing down."

.

* * *

4:43pm

.

The wind was strangely absent as the two of them sat themselves down inside the wildlife hide. Deputy Mouton got comfortable on the wooden chair, scooting it up a little way to bring him closer to the slit in the tarpaulin. He picked up the binoculars by his side and adjusted them to see out across the waste ground.

McGivers, next to him, did the same. She balanced her notebook on her knee as she pulled the pencil from behind her ear. She looked down to title a fresh page with the time and date.

"So… Agent McGivers," Mouton said quietly. "This is the longest anyone from the Sheriff's Office has gotten to work with you."

"That's true."

He shifted in his seat. "Do you like working alone, or is your work top secret government stuff?" he teased.

"Yes. On both counts," she said.

He let the binoculars drop and looked at her. "Pardon me?"

"Oh, ah… I don't get the chance to come to the Sheriff's Office much," she said.

He 'oh'ed and went back to the view outside. "That's a shame, really," he offered. "I mean, it'd be nice to see more of you. —At the office, I mean."

"Oh. Well. Thank you, Deputy Mouton," she said, surprised.

"You can call me Andy," he said cheerfully.

"Thank you… Andy."

It was quiet for a while. He sniffed and put down the binoculars. "It must be nice to have other FBI agents come down here. To see more of people in the same business, I mean."

"It is, yes," she said with a smile. "I was very happy to be informed they were coming down from Washington."

"Yeah. Big fancy city folk and all," he teased.

"Like the people from Baton Rouge? Or New Orleans?" she asked innocently.

"Not really."

"Are they not cities too?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"Then I do not understand the difference."

Mouton looked at her. "You're not from around here, so I'll spell it out," he said with a smile. "Those two FBI agents? They've never woken up smelling the river, or hearing the rains on the roof, or driving to work past a 'gator and having to stop and go back to corral it until the trappers can get there and take it back to the river. They're from a completely different world. Washington's nothing like here."

"Have you been there?" she asked, surprised.

"Twice. Didn't like it much. But I'm glad I tried it," he shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I'd like to try a lot more places, too. But I think I'll probably end up back here at the end of it."

She watched him for a few moments, until he noticed and turned his head to her. She smiled and picked up her binoculars again.

"Would you mind me asking _your_ first name?" he asked politely.

"Oh I don't have one," she said off-hand.

"Pardon me?"

"Oh! Uh… That was… a joke."

He chuckled. "You had me going there for a second." He paused. "So what is it?"

"Marla," she said carefully.

He nodded. "Mind if I call you that?"

"I do not mind at all, Andy."

Mouton smiled to himself as he looked back through the viewing gap in the hide. "I bet those other two agents are talking about boring, Washington stuff. They seem very serious about their work."

.

* * *

.

"Mulder, you're being preposterous," Scully sighed, her binoculars glued to her face.

"All evidence supports my theory."

"No, it does not. _Ziggy Stardust_ is _clearly_ much better than _Hunky Dory_."

"And what do you base that _preposterous_ opinion on?" Mulder scoffed.

" _Ziggy Stardust_ had _Moonage Daydream, Starman, Suffragette City_ \- and the best song he's ever done, _Rock and Roll Suicide_ ," she said firmly.

Mulder chuckled. " _Hunky Dory_ had _Changes_ \- and _Life on Mars?_ ," he argued.

"That's two, Mulder. _Ziggy Stardust_ had at least four stand-out tracks."

It was quiet for a moment. "You think _Rock and Roll Suicide_ is his best track? Ever?"

"Yes I do," she said immediately. "Without a doubt."

"I never figured you for a romantic, Scully," he mused.

"Even if that were true, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I just…" He went quiet. "I do have a confession to make."

"What?"

"I'm kind of partial to _Heroes_. The track, not the album."

"I would have thought _Starman_ would be more your style," she smiled.

"It puts me too much in mind of the Lone Gunmen, sitting listening to secret government radio signals."

She shook her head and put her binoculars in her lap. "Do you really think this creature is coming for the smell?"

"Yep," he said. "I mean, it's what he's leaving on all the victims before he eats them."

"Well, I was thinking about that, and… what if it's not?" she asked carefully. "What if it leaves that smell _because_ it comes to kill them, not because it left it on them to trace?"

He turned on his little wooden stool to look at her. "We can hope not."

"I'm not trying to shoot down your theory, Mulder, I'm just… Trying to make sure we're waiting around here for a good cause."

He looked at his watch. "We have another hour before we change shifts. If he's not here by the time we swap back in, maybe we should rethink this whole thing."

She frowned, then looked back out of the hide. She looked across the waste ground to the other identical hide. "Do you think McGivers and Mouton are getting along in there?"

"I'm sure he's asleep and she's sitting completely still, not blinking, not breathing, just _watching_ ," he mused.

"So you do think she tapped our motel phones?" she asked.

"I still don't get why. She must know we use our cell phones for most things. The only reason I tried your room number last night was because your cell phone rang out."

"I was indisposed, Mulder. It stopped before I could answer it."

"Come on, G-Woman, you're supposed to be better than us mortal men - made of steel, impervious to gunfire, an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything biological or medical and no need to do the mundane, crappy stuff that us mortals have to."

She didn't say a word. Instead she reached across and ran her fingers into the hair at the side of his head - and then pushed sharply.

He almost lost his balance as he was shoved half off the stool, but laughed and sat upright again. "Hey don't blame me - that's what Frohike said the last time I saw him."

"You boys talk about me a lot?" she asked suspiciously.

"We get together around a few beers and we worship at the shrine of our patron saint in bullshit-prevention, Our Lady Dana Scully," he grinned.

She tutted at him. "You know technically that's blasphemy."

"Most religions are blasphemous to another one."

"I can never tell when you're joking," she said, her eyes narrowed.

The rear flap of the hide rippled casually and bent inward. Mulder twisted round but there was no-one there. Scully only turned to look when he didn't return to his vigil.

"What?" she asked.

Mulder looked at her. "Does it feel windy to you?"

She looked back out the front of the hide. "Nothing's moving," she muttered from behind her binoculars. "It was pretty humid in here _before_ you mentioned there being no breeze."

He got up and inspected the rear flap, but nothing was cause for attention. "Well… That was weird."

"Oh look, hang on," she said suddenly.

He came back to his stool. "What? What do you see?"

"The trees behind the other hide - they're moving." She put down her binoculars. "It's just wind, Mulder."

"If you say so," he said quietly.

They sat. They watched. They waited for six o'clock.

.

* * *

6:02pm

.

McGivers got up from her stool and stretched. "Well, perhaps it'll come on the next watch," she said.

One of the newly-arrived deputies standing behind her nodded, taking her binoculars from her hand. "We can hope so, ma'am."

She nodded and went around him, Mouton chatting with the two men before ducking out of the hide too. He stood by McGivers, as she scribbled something in her notebook.

"So, uh, Marla," he said hopefully.

"Yes, Andy?"

"Are you heading back home? Or do you want to maybe grab a beer, get something to eat… with, uh, me? Maybe?" he asked quietly.

Her hand halted all movement. Her head tilted to one side and her eyes slid in their sockets to look him in the eye. "Are you asking me to eat food with you? At an establishment like a restaurant?"

"Well I was thinking the Time Out in Shreveport," he shrugged. "It's a sports bar, just half an hour down the 175."

Her face changed; suddenly it was as if the sun had come out. "That would be exciting," she gushed. "However…" Her smile fell. "I think it would be best if we did not go tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. If that's amenable to you, Andy?"

He beamed. "That'd be just fine, Marla. Just fine. Are you, uh, ok for a lift back home?"

"I am, Andy, thank you for being considerate," she nodded.

He backed away. "Well then, I'll, ah… see you, then. Tomorrow."

"Yes you will. Good evening."

"Evening," he said with a wide smile, tipping a finger to his hat and turning away.

She watched him go, then paged through to the next blank section in her notebook and started scribbling.

"Are you going to publish anything at some point?" said a voice.

She jumped nearly out of her skin and whipped around to see Mulder stood behind her. "Publish what?" she asked, still shocked.

He put his hands up in surrender. "Ho, slow down," he grinned. "Just wondering what you plan to do with all your notes, there."

"Oh… I see," she said. Every muscle she had unclenched from panic mode, and she let out a long breath. "I… keep them. I record things, in the hope that I can do better next time."

Scully came walking up around the hide behind Mulder, stopping and looking at the two of them. "So we just wait until our shift at ten?" she asked.

"Pretty much," he nodded, turning to look at her. "I gave my gun with the silver bullets to Carson until we get back."

"I still don't believe lead bullets will be any less effective than silver ones," Scully said.

Mulder nodded to McGivers, then put a hand to Scully's shoulder and turned her round. "Then how do you explain how you can poison a man with arsenic but not with chocolate?"

"Mulder you're being ridiculous," she said as they walked away. "We're talking about shooting a living animal with bullets in a vital organ. If I stabbed it with a wooden stick in the right organ it would still die, so what does the nature of the weapon have to do with it?"

"But it cannot be killed by hitting it in a vital organ, _unless_ you do it with silver," he argued.

"Why silver? Why not copper, or gold?"

McGivers watched them move away from her, their debating voices carrying over as she opened up her notebook, smiled fondly, and began to write.

.

* * *

6:30pm

.

The phone rang. McGivers snatched it up. "Yes, sir."

"The operation went as planned?"

"It did not, sir. As it turns out, the male was misguided about the bait."

"And the female?"

"She was thorough and analytical. I believe she will work out the correct bait, and this will be resolved in short order."

"You are confident for someone who is only here to take notes."

"I apologise sir."

There was a long gap, and McGivers forced herself to breathe slowly and wait.

"Still… it shows that we do not need the male at all. It appears you were correct; the female is the more valuable. We shall keep her, and dispose of him."

"But sir," she said hastily, "he may be off-target with some of his theories, but it is when she grounds him, and reminds him of hard facts, that they accomplish all they have - together. We cannot split them now, sir, and we cannot expect them to work the same apart as they do together. I firmly believe, sir, that without him to theorise wildly, or her to bring him back to this planet, that between them they would not come to the conclusion that will solve this case."

A pause. Then: "Are you… _fond_ … of these subjects?"

"Of course not, sir. However, mixing with them and their kind is so much different than I had anticipated."

"'Their kind'?"

"City folk, sir. They are complicated, and closed-off emotionally, and resistant to the truths closest to them."

"Strange."

"Yes, sir. You see my interest in these subjects, sir."

"I am beginning to. I smell a lot of delicious irony about all this. Perhaps… more than we know."

"Sir?"

"Let us reconvene. We shall table the discussion and inform you of our ruling, of the new timetable for their disposal."

McGivers frowned. "But sir—"

"We always knew we would have to remove them from this. Don't ever forget that everything we do is for the good of the locals. If these two had not crossed our radar so many times, we wouldn't have had to set them on this case at all. It is _they_ who have brought this upon themselves, and _they_ who will ultimately cause the experiment to run its course." The voice paused. "We knew we would have to let them go."

"The loss of such valuable subjects makes me… sad, sir."

"As it does me, I assure you. However… it is in the best interest." Again, a pause. "In the next few hours, then. Secure their fates, and remember why we do this."

"Yes, sir."

"This is no different from all the other agents we have had to test, and eliminate."

"I understand, sir."

"Just a few hours, then, and they will be over."

She drew in a breath, heard it falter with emotion. She swallowed to clear it from her voice. "Yes, sir."

The line went dead. She replaced the receiver with a shaky hand. And then, wiping away a curious dribble of water from her eye, she got up from her desk.

.

* * *

7:42pm

.

The sound of the phone ringing beyond the bathroom door made Scully lift her head from the edge of the bathtub. "Not now, Mulder!" she shouted as loud as her lungs would let her. The phone suddenly stopped.

She scooted back down in the hot bath, the bubbles floating around like icebergs, and she lifted one foot out of the water to rest on the edge. She crossed it with her other ankle and slipped down more, until her chin was submerged in bubbles. A smile was permitted to flit across her face, and she closed her eyes.

This time it was the sound a cell phone ringing that made her eyes open and her face give new meaning to the term 'bad ham'. She didn't move a muscle, save those in her jaw.

She took a deep breath, repaired her calm, and was content to listen to the phone ring on and on. Finally it ceased.

A knock at her main door made furious rage well up from inside her. She moved her feet off the edge, yanked the chain from the plughole with her toes, and scrabbled to get up. Hanging the chain over the taps, she climbed out of the tub and fetched a bathrobe from behind the door.

"Alright! I'm coming!" she shouted at the noise against her door.

She stopped to wipe at the mirror and check how she looked to the outside world. Her eyes fell as she turned away. Then she froze, startled. She spun back to the mirror, but turned her shoulder. Her eyes went down to her shoulder blade.

" _No_ …"

.


	9. Shields Down

**NINE**

 **Shields Down**

.

Scully's eyes bored into the misty mirror, glaring at the black smudge on her back. She yanked on the bathrobe, barely tying the belt up before she ripped open the bathroom door and ran to the main entrance to the room.

She didn't even check the spyhole before heaving the door open. Her hand went out into the cotton she recognised by peripheral vision and smell alone, and then she pulled with all her strength, hauling the owner into her room. She slammed the door shut and leant back on it.

Mulder just stood there, still in his suit trousers but now _sans_ shirt. The wife beater vest he had on was very clean and very white, untucked and protesting the reception Scully had given it. His hands came up in mystification. "What?" he asked, just managing to keep it from being classed as whiny.

She undid her robe quickly.

He backed up. "Whoa, wait. This isn't exactly how I imagined—"

"Shut up Mulder," she ordered. "Check my back."

"What for?"

"Do it!" She turned away from him and widened the top of the robe, causing it to drop round her shoulders to reveal her wet skin. "There! Can you see it?"

She felt his hand on her shoulder, and then it slipped down and stopped between her shoulder blades. "There's like… a mark."

"What _kind_ of mark? The same ones I saw in the morgue? Am I marked, now?" she demanded angrily.

"Calm down," he protested. "Let me look."

"It'd better not be that mark, Mulder. It'd better not be," she warned. "I am _not_ being eaten by some creature from a French myth! It's ridiculous!"

"Well… it does _look_ the same," he managed. "But why you? You're not connected to any of this - McGivers gave me her report and I can't see a connection. The two workers I get - they were eaten because they were in the way and the peluda hadn't eaten in maybe two hundred years. Lanoux and Morin I can understand - they were part of the committee that opened up the land. But why not everyone else? Why only those people? The two sets of people don't even connect _together_."

Scully pulled her robe up and tied it tight. She spun round to look at him. "Take off your shirt."

"What?"

"Take it off. Maybe you're marked too, and if you are, we know _exactly_ how this happened."

"We do?" he asked dumbly. He grasped the hem of his vest in both hands and lifted it off over his head. He dropped it to her bed and she went straight to him, checking his chest, his arms, and then turning him round and checking his back.

"Nothing," she heaved. "Shit."

"Thanks - I'm going to go ahead and count that a small good thing in the huge pile of bad things so far." He turned to her.

She grabbed hold of his arms to hold him still. "But… I thought you'd have one too, and then I'd know it was because _we were on the land_. That's what I thought it was - anyone who walks across the waste ground, across your 'magic circle'… I can't explain why but I know that's what it is, Mulder!"

"Ok, alright," he began.

"But it's not because _you_ don't have it!" she went on angrily. "And again, here I am about to die and all I can think is _it's not fair_."

He freed his arms from her grip and pulled her against him, wrapping his longer arms around her back and tipping her into him. She gasped in breath, in relief, and threaded her arms round him. Her head fell and she found it very comfortably installed against his collarbone.

He swayed them slightly and she took a deep breath, and then another one.

"Scully," he said quietly, "how many times are you going to think you're going to die before you realise that you're not."

"It's been one of those days - _careers_ ," she sighed.

He smiled above her head, she could hear the tiny rush of air through his nose. "Are you dead yet?"

"All evidence points to no."

"Then trust me. Whatever it is that wants to kill you this time, it'll have to get through me - like all the other times."

"Well, some of them."

"Ok, _some_ of them." He tilted his head, lying his cheek against her hair. "You'll be ok, Scully. This isn't a huge alien conspiracy. This isn't cancer. This is just a lizard with spines - a physical animal - that we can trap and kill."

She pushed herself back slowly. "Ugh. What am I doing. I can't believe I just lost it like that."

She moved to pull away, but he held her fast. One hand went to the side of her face, sliding down her cheek. "You just freaked out. It happens to us all at one time or another," he said.

"When's the last time _you_ freaked out like this, Mulder?" she accused, and he heard all too well the disgust in her voice.

"Honestly?"

"Tell me."

He smiled at her, and she felt some of her self-loathing break off and tumble away. "Well," he said slowly, "I think it was about… last Thursday."

"Really," she stated flatly.

"Yeah. There was this big-ass spider in my shower, and I didn't see it until I was _in_ there, and like a foot under the damn thing. I was just turning on the water and saw it, larger than my hand."

She couldn't repress a smile at the absurdity. "And what did you do?"

"I screamed - a real, honest-to-God girlie scream - and leapt out. Nearly cracked my head open on the toilet seat when I slipped. I screamed some more, ran around the apartment looking for a shoe, came back and battered it to death - all the while screaming at it," he smiled.

She chuckled. "You did _not_."

"Hey - ask the man who lives across the street. I'm sure he got more of an eyeful than he ever wanted of ol' naked Mulder running around screaming 'I'm going to kill you, you motherfu—'"

"You're just trying to make me feel better," she grinned.

"There really _was_ a spider, Scully. It was bigger than my head - bigger than _you_. I was afraid that after it had killed me and eaten all my soft tissue, you would have come to my apartment to find out why I wasn't at work - and then it would eaten _you_. I couldn't have that, so I had to kill it."

She chuckled again, then tipped her chin up, looking at him. He just smiled at her, until he reached out and pressed a firm kiss into her forehead. She closed her eyes and savoured the touch, made of worry, of relief, of fierce will to protect her, of knowing he was probably wasting his time wanting to do something that she could already do herself.

Too soon it was gone. She opened her eyes and saw him watching her, his eyes much more serious. His hand went into her hair to push it away from her face. It dropped away, but she let her hand dangle and find his fingers, squeezing them hard.

The amusement returned to his face. Her other hand came up and slid round his neck, pulling his head down within reach. His smile faded as his eyes flicked down to her mouth. She pulled on his neck; he closed on her, aiming for her lips.

She stretched up on tip-toes. She could feel his breath on her mouth, the heat so very close to her lips, and she closed her eyes, knowing the next thing she would feel would be—

The room phone trilled into loud, angry life.

They both jumped.

Mulder had to step back as she pushed him an inch. She stalked over to the phone and ripped it from the receiver. "Scully," she barked. Her other hand went to her hip and she huffed out a long breath. "What have you got?"

Mulder looked at his empty hands. The wistful puppy-dog look was summarily wiped from his face, as he went round her to the bed. He picked up his shirt, about to pull it on over his head, but she reached across the bed and grabbed it. She kept it in her fist and put her hand on her hip.

"Then we don't have much to go on," she said down the phone. She watched Mulder as he turned his back to her to sit on the bed. He leant over, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. She heard the tell-tale sigh of unfairness and quelled similar feelings as she listened to the voice on the phone. "Yes, I understand that. Then we'll just come back and change the _bait_ ," she allowed. "Oh I think I have something that will work."

Mulder swivelled on the bed and pinned her with a black look. He shook his head.

"Yes, definitely," she said. "Back to the waste ground. Yes."

Mulder rolled his eyes and turned away from her, his forearms resting on his knees.

"Yes. We'll need the—." Scully stopped dead with a small gasp.

Mulder turned again to look at her. She dropped the shirt from her hand and pointed at the back of his belt. He attempted to look round at it, feeling around behind to wonder if he'd left his gun in the belt holster.

But the look on Scully's face was part fear, part anger. "Hold on," she ordered down the phone. She motioned him over.

He got up and went back round the bed. She pushed him round and yanked at the trouser belt at the back to bring it down a few inches. She poked a sharp finger into his skin just underneath where it normally rested. He jumped and then twisted to look down - at a black smudge. His eyes went up and found hers.

She stared at him as she spoke down the phone. "McGivers… the other hide, the one you and the deputy were in… Was that actually _on_ the land? Or outside the boundary? Outside? Are you _sure?_ " she demanded. "Ok then," she said, sounding much relieved. "We'll be right there. Get everyone to the waste ground, but make sure _no-one_ steps onto that land. Do you understand me? Not for _any_ reason." She slammed the phone down.

"You were right," he said.

"You need to get a shirt on. I need some clothes," she said, turning him in her hands and pushing him toward the door.

"Yeah - ok - sure," he said as he was moved. She opened the main door to the room. He looked at her. "But what about - y'know - stuff we were gonna cover before the phone ran—"

"Not now, Mulder." She pushed and he was just outside the doorjamb. The door was unceremoniously closed so close to his nose it almost recoiled itself in fear.

He did an abrupt about-face and trudged back to his own room, shaking his head. If anyone had walked past just at that moment, they would have heard the words 'cosmic injustice' float around his door as it closed behind him.

.

* * *

8:22pm

.

Mulder, now back in his white work shirt and suit trousers, pulled the rental car up at the waste ground, jumping out of the driver's side and looking over the roof of the car.

Scully scooted out and slammed her door before she did the same. "You keep everyone off the land," she said, pulling her government-issued gun from her trouser holster and making sure it was loaded and ready. "I'll be right in the middle under the lights. When it comes for me, you shoot the bastard."

Mulder smiled. "I love it when you take control."

"Go," she ordered. "And don't let it eat you, Mulder. If you die, I'll re-order _all_ your cryptid records into one giant box marked 'who cares?'."

He tapped the top of the car with a grin, turning away to the waste ground and the scattering of deputies, standing around with large rifles and looks of worry. He spread his hands and began to explain.

Scully headed off toward the large bank of construction lights, high above the excavator still sitting, waiting for a driver. She kept her weapon low as she hurried over the uneven ground. She looked down at herself and realised that perhaps black was not the best colour she could have chosen. She slipped off her suit jacket and hung it on the door of the excavator, revealing a cream blouse.

She heard a voice and then Mulder was jogging across the open ground, something in his hand. He stopped in front of her. "Give me your gun," he said.

She looked at him, then at the weapon in his hand. "What? No."

"Scully… Your gun has regular bullets in it. This one has silver ones."

"Then you keep it, if you believe it will kill the creature," she reasoned.

"Take it," he said. "Keep yours too if you have to, but take this one as back-up."

"But—"

"You said it yourself, Scully - anything that a lead bullet will kill, a silver one will too. What's the harm?" He proffered the handle and waited.

She huffed to herself, then holstered her own weapon. She took it from him and checked the magazine, then primed the chamber. "Have you got a spare?"

"Always," he nodded. "Be careful."

"I'm more worried about those deputies shooting one of us by accident," she said, nodding behind him.

He turned and looked at the five men and women being sternly spoken to by Carson and McGivers. "I wouldn't. They've all trained with rifles, shotguns… the usual sheriff's deputy type stuff," he said cheekily.

"Are you not going to take this seriously?"

"Scully, what's _not_ to take seriously?" he said with a smile. "Tonight we will finally find out which of us is right."

"About what?"

"Everything. I'm going to set up position over there, put some distance between us. That way it'll have to choose one of us. Whichever one it goes for, the other will take it down, right?" He put a hand up, squeezed her arm, and walked away.

She checked the gun again. Then she looked around the waste ground, listening, watching. Mulder had stopped a good twenty feet away, pulling another gun from the holster at the back of his belt and checking the magazine and chamber. He looked across at her.

She nodded.

He lifted his chin and straightened up, then turned resolutely to survey the land.

Scully felt a breeze. She looked up and around, but nothing else stirred. She made sure both hands were on the gun and in the correct position. She turned into the current and felt it flow over her face.

Something cracked.

She spun to check. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. She looked over at Mulder. He had the gun dangling by his side, looking around slowly.

She felt a prickle of cool air. Frowning, she looked up and across at the digger. It was still frozen in place, unable to move without an operator. She shivered slightly, then lifted her left hand and put the back of it to her forehead. Finding it warm enough, she made her hand drop but again felt it chilly.

Something caught her eye and she looked over at Mulder. He appeared to be feeling the cool too; his arms were straighter than usual and he looked to be resisting a shiver.

She peered over at the deputies. They had spread out in a circle, very wide and presumably outside of Mulder's magic boundary. They had rifles ready but pointing at the ground. All of them had their large green Sheriff's Office bomber-style jackets on, and not one of them seemed cold. In fact, one deputy was in the act of taking off his hat and waving air at his face.

As she looked back at the digger, then the ground around her, she realised her skin was beginning to prickle. The hum of the lights above her became louder; the flutter of wings of moths and other nighttime bugs made her suddenly aware of the amount of wildlife all around them.

A glance at Mulder; a look at the digger; checking the open ground. She performed her little ritual over and over in agonising silence. The sound of the lights far above grew deeper. Her eyes began to slit, began to resist the brightness, despite the pitch that lay right outside the circle's boundary.

A glance at Mulder, a look at the digger; checking the open ground. She swallowed. Something caught her eye; something white was moving. Her gaze snapped round - but it was Mulder, one arm going across him to rub his right one, still holding the gun loosely in his hand.

She saw him shield his eyes from the light, then rub his arm again. Her hand went for her phone. She realised her jacket - and by extension, its pocket - was hanging from the door of the excavator and began to cross for it.

And then she heard it.

A low, almost fox-like cough. She froze. She listened. Something moved behind her, to her right. She spun and lifted the gun.

Nothing.

"Scully! Four o'clock!" Mulder shouted.

She whirled and aimed.

Nothing.

She tore her gaze away from the ground, squinting now at the bright lights even though they shouldn't be; shivering in the humidity, feeling something going very, very wrong. "Mulder!" she called. "Mulder where are you!"

"I'm ok. It was there, Scully - I saw it! Right behind you!"

"Where did it go?" she yelled.

"I don't know! It was behind the digger - then it was gone!"

"Mulder don't move!" she called. "I'm going to come toward you, going to move away from the digger!"

"Scully _stop!_ "

She froze. She listened as hard as she could. She swivelled in the scratchy grass slowly, getting a full three hundred and sixty degree turn to study everything. Nothing moved. Not even a moth crossed the light around her.

She swallowed. She counted to three. "Mulder?" she called.

No answer.

" _Mulder!_ " she raged.

"Don't move, Scully!"

She felt cold sweat go down her back. The brightness of the light, the apparent cold of her skin - her hands started to tremble around the gun.

Something breathed behind her.

She turned.

She gasped in horror.

Large, spiny, reptilian, _snarling_ anger stood before her. Four legs, planted firmly in the soil, ended in huge claws. Its head was long, almost like an alligator but possessing of more and much better quality teeth - smaller, sleeker, deadlier. Its eyes looked dark - no pupil lived but blanket holes full of deep, navy fury. The spines that covered its back were starting to rise, starting to glisten in the abrupt cold.

"M-Mulder!" she cried.

The creature lashed its tail. Its jaws opened. It took one step forward.

She raised the gun. She pointed it directly at the opening maw.

" _Scully!_ "

The peluda leapt at her. She dropped to her back. She fired. She rolled and kept going until the count of three. Then she leapt up on one knee, her gun ready to fire.

The ground was empty.

She heard a rifle crack - then another. She looked back at the deputies. She traced their lines of sight. She saw Mulder standing as if waiting for a bus - except both arms were out straight, aiming at a giant creature now bounding along the waste ground toward him.

Scully broke into a run. She pounded across the grass after it.

Mulder began to back up as it closed on him. He fired - and again - and again.

Rifles and shotguns went off repeatedly. Scully skidded to a stop in the grass as the peluda fell in a messy heap.

But it thrashed and wailed. It rolled and found its feet. It whipped around and sighted Scully. It shook itself of grass. It ran toward her.

She stopped dead. She aimed. She felt her arms shivering, her fingers going numb from cold. Her teeth chattered in her head. She watched the up and down motion of the peluda, covering the ground toward her faster and faster. She timed the crests and valleys. She held her breath. It was barely ten feet away.

She fired.

The peluda roared.

She fired again - directly into its mouth.

Another sound - someone else. She slipped on the grass. The creature's eyes widened. The bone between its eye sockets suddenly shattered.

Scully felt the swift, hot patter of liquid on her face as she hit the ground. Her breath harsh and ragged in her ears, the cold around her, the lighting too much for her eyes - she scrabbled to her hands and knees. She dragged her gun toward her in the grass. She heard a noise and whirled to her back. Both arms flew out straight to aim the gun. But it was the very welcome sight of Mulder.

Framed in the bright white light, he was grinning, albeit lopsided and more out of relief than humour, she guessed. She made her gun drop.

He walked up and crouched in front of her, his own gun dangling from his hand. "You ok?" he asked, his smile gone.

She nodded. "I think so. Did you get it?"

"It was McGivers. Hell of a shot from forty feet. That woman is Annie Oakley… I am _so glad_ she took me seriously about the silver." He offered his palm and she took it. Between them they hauled her to her feet - and a cheer rose up from around them.

Scully just turned around, dumbfounded, as she felt Mulder's hand retreat from hers. Instead he rolled down his sleeve, covered his hand with the cuff, and smoothed at her cheek and forehead.

"Get off," she tutted, pushing his hand away, but the red on the shirt made her pause. "What's that?"

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say peluda blood," he grinned.

The noise of voices got louder. She turned to see. The circle of deputies had their rifles by their sides and their free hands in the air. Cheering and whooping was accompanied by hats being waved or thrown into the dark sky. She stared, trying to take it in, as she saw they were all jumping and shouting in joy, in relief.

Feet in the grass, a whistle of awe, "Look at this, Scully," from behind her.

She turned and looked. Mulder was standing by the monstrous body, leaning over as if torn between not getting too close and wanting to see everything.

"This is how it ends," she said with a tired smile.

"What?"

"This is how it ends. You always want to know everything, Mulder, but not how it ends. Well _this_ is how it ends. And we're ok."

He turned back to look at her. "I told you we would be."

She snorted, then walked up to his side to peer down at the animal. Without her consent her fingers grabbed his and squeezed. She refused to let go of his ice-cold digits as they stood and studied the dead body.

More feet in the grass - running, heavy. They let go of each other to turn and see a wave of noisy green sheriff's coats converging on them. The voices turned to questions: _What the hell is that thing where did it come from oh my god you were right where's my phone I want a picture with this thing what is this some kind of monster my kids are gonna have nightmares if I tell them about this what the hell is that anyway?_

Mulder put his hands up and the voices died out. "So who's going to help us get this on a truck and back to the morgue?"

Curiously, it went very quiet very quickly.

.


	10. Shields Up

**TEN**

 **Shields Up**

.

The morgue was full of people, jostling to get a look at the giant spiny creature now lying on its side on the only available gurney. Scully had weaved her way to its side and was looking down at its skin, its spines, _everything_ , while all around her jubilant voices were telling tales of how epic the take-down had been.

Carson pushed her way to the front. "Everyone shut the hell up!" she cried. The voices hushed immediately. "I want you people to all go home and get a good night's rest," she ordered. "And I want you to tell everyone you see on the way that we caught the vicious animal that was attacking folks, and everyone is safe again, you hear? Mouton - I want you to stop by the Seven-Eleven and drop the gossip on Edie - she'll tell every living soul in a few hours."

Mouton gave a cheery mock-salute as everyone else cheered again, dishing out high-fives and hearty back-slaps.

Carson waved her hands for quiet. "And you will say nothing about what the ugly son of a bitch looked like, do you understand me? We do not want to spread panic or paranoia. All we want is for people to know that it was some kind of lizard and now it's very, _very_ dead. Understand?"

Cries of ' _yes sheriff_ ' echoed around the room.

She nodded and let her hands drop. "Ok then - all of y'all - go home!"

People whooped and began to file out. She noticed one person did not. McGivers came forward silently, her hands together in front of her, her eyes on the floor.

"You did good, McGivers," Carson said. She put her hand out.

McGivers looked at it. She offered a small smile and shook briefly. "I didn't actually want it dead," she said, her voice soft. "But… I couldn't let it hurt Agent Scully."

"Well, you did just fine," Carson said. "Now I've gotta go write this up. I suggest you go and get some rest too."

But McGivers looked over at the gurney, and Scully. "Do you need anything?" she asked, almost hopefully.

Scully looked up slowly. "What?" She shook her head. "Sorry, I just… I lost concentration there."

Mulder came in through the door, slapping his hands together and rubbing. "What a night," he grinned. "Now everyone's gone, how are we for an autopsy?" He stopped by the gurney and put his hands on the edge, staring down at the corpse. "Finally."

"Yeah," Scully said faintly. She tubbed at her temple.

"Look at that. Proof of a cryptid. We're going down in history, Scully - you, me, McGivers, Carson, all the deputies. Just _look_ at it!" he gushed.

"But…" She frowned. "Maybe we shouldn't have killed it."

"What?" he asked, surprised.

"I can't help wondering… did I want it dead because I was afraid of it, or did I want it dead because it was the right thing to do to prevent more deaths? What have I done, telling you to kill it?"

He studied her. "You ok?"

"I don't know," she said. "I feel kinda…"

He turned and put his hands to the sides of her shoulders, holding her still to look her over very carefully. "Are your pupils supposed to be really big?" he asked.

She waved him off. "They can't be - it's so bright in here," she muttered.

"Yeah - what's with all the lights in the station?" he asked, confused.

Carson shrugged. "They've been the same all week. You're just exhausted, the pair of you."

"No, on the ground, the construction lights… Everything was really bright. Too bright," Scully said.

"And cold," Mulder put in.

Scully nodded. "I was shivering, and everyone else was sweating."

He put a hand to her forehead. "You _are_ cold." He felt his own head. "And I… have… _really_ cold hands."

"Are you guys in shock? Do you want an ambulance?" Carson said gingerly. "I can get one here in minutes."

"No - it's not shock," Scully said.

"Sure?" Carson asked. "That thing nearly killed you an hour ago."

"It's not shock," Mulder said dismissively. "She's seen worse and walked it off."

Carson blinked in surprise. Then she looked at McGivers. "What do you think?"

"I think," she sighed, "I am going to get into trouble for what I did tonight. But I could not stand by and watch this happen."

Carson scowled. "What?"

"I could not watch the peluda kill Agent Scully. I knew what it would do to her, and how painful it would be, and I knew what her death would to Agent Mulder, and how painful it would be. So I chose to… stop it. All of it."

"And we're all very grateful," Mulder said warily, his eyes narrowing on her. "Who are you going to be in trouble _with_ , exactly?"

"It really didn't go as expected, after all. Although I was correct that Agent Scully would put it together," McGivers went on. "It's all over and done with. But… I don't want it to be. I… I really _don't_ want this to end how it should. So I… have initiated… a somewhat different end."

Carson put her hands on her hips. "You explain what in hell you're talking about, McGivers."

But McGivers reached into her pocket and brought out a small metal item. Scully peered over at it, even though she had to shield her eyes from the lights. "What is that?" she managed, sounding quite slow.

Mulder looked at her, concerned, but McGivers raised the item, bringing his attention back to her. "This is an on/off switch." She looked at Carson. "Thank you, for all your help. You don't know how much of a find you all are. I am so sorry about… what happened - to all of you. And I am sorry you don't know what that was. But it really is out of my hands, you see." She paused. "Goodbye."

She pressed the switch.

Mulder and Scully simply stared, confused as all hell, as Carson vanished. The room seemed to vibrate, or shimmer, and then snap back into focus. Mulder turned quickly. The gurney was empty.

"No - no no no no!" he cried. "Bring it back! What's happening!"

McGivers looked sad to the extreme. "I'm afraid it was never there, Agent Mulder."

Scully groaned something, possibly a protest. Mulder turned back to her in time to see her almost stumble, one hand to her head. He grabbed her arm to keep her upright. His head swung sharply to glare at McGivers. "What have you done to Scully?" he demanded.

McGivers put the device back in her pocket. "Now we have come to the end, I shall explain everything. We don't have much time, but that cannot be helped." She folded her hands in front of her. "I am a watcher. This has been my job for over a hundred years. I chronicle, and I record, as you have noticed."

"A watcher of what? For whom?" Scully asked drowsily.

"My people. We were curious, and did not want to get in the way. So we devised a set of rules, of games. Others of my kind - we borrowed people, talked to them, asked them things. That's how it was in the beginning. But many of my kind thought that it was taking too long, that your people can be disingenuous, or unco-operative. And so a set of trials was concocted. We… began to borrow people to see how they would react to certain… situations."

"Wait," Mulder said, his voice growing dark. "Are you saying this all some kind of _experiment?_ "

"Uh… yes, that is the word," she nodded sadly. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. But you two were selected, and I was told to oversee your experiment."

"'Our people' - 'your people' - who _are_ you?" he growled.

McGivers put her hands up in surrender. "I only do as I am told, Agent Mulder. You know who we are. We've always been here."

"And you've been experimenting on us?" he snapped.

"I… am sorry to say… yes. This entire peluda situation… is not real. It has been an experiment by my people. We need to know how you would react, how you would—"

His knee gave suddenly. His free hand slammed down into the small table of autopsy implements on his left to keep him upright. Metal tools bounced and silenced her; he swept them all the floor in noisy, angry protest. "After what she's been through?" he shouted, noting Scully begin to sag in his grip. He pulled her up against his side, supporting her as she tried to stay awake. " _You don't do this to her!_ " he raged.

McGivers took a step back in fright. "Agent Mulder—"

"You don't use her!" he hurled. "You don't experiment on her! Not after everything she's been through! You touch her again _and I'll kill you!_ "

"Mulder, no," Scully whispered. "Where are we? Really?"

He looked at her, put his free hand to her face, kept her head upright. Her eyes were nearly closed. He glared at McGivers. "Where are we? Where have we _really_ been? And don't lie!"

McGivers looked at her feet in upset. "You have been in our facility. You never left DeSoto Airport, Agent Mulder. And I would _never_ lie to you. Your whole life has been about truth. Lying to you would be… rude," she said. His face started to go red. McGivers backed up one as more of his anger boiled to the surface. "We do not have time for your emotions," she said quickly. "The sedatives you have been on are draining from your systems. I disconnected your drips - but the after-effects will make you weak for the next few hours. You must escape and you must do it _now_."

"Sedatives?" Mulder demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"You are not here, Agent Mulder. You are in a private container terminal at DeSoto Airport. This is why it's so cold - the container terminal is under environmental control. It's about fifty-five degrees of your Fahrenheit in here. Now the sedatives and machines have been disconnected, you will begin to feel the real air around you - soon you will wake."

"This is… a morgue," Scully muttered.

"Scully - stay awake," Mulder urged, tapping gently at her cheek. "Stay awake for me. Please."

"It is not a morgue, Agent Scully," McGivers said. "We simply had to give the place a life-like appearance. If you should ever visit the real DeSoto Parish Sheriff's Office you'll see this place is truly identical." She paused. "You two are connected to the same console. We tried using single subjects in the past, but we really needed a team. That's why you two are the only real things in here - and me, of course. Your interactions, your behaviour, everything you have done since you thought you stepped off the plane at the airport - it was all real in that you experienced it. But here, in the real world… you did not."

"But why?" Scully sighed.

"Stay awake," Mulder grunted. He slumped abruptly against the gurney behind them.

"Because you two are the best we saw. So much potential, so much spirit. We needed people that would keep fighting. But sadly… this experiment is over, and you - the real physical yous - should be flushed, thrown away like so much refuse. We should start tomorrow with new subjects." She looked at her feet. "But… you two were the only ones to ever solve the peluda mystery. You were the only two that showed me… how human you all are. And everything I can never be - everything I can never have." She smiled, a sad, broken affair. "I am… most sorry. I do like you two agents, very much. I am heartbroken that it has come to this."

Scully squirmed and her right arm shuffled. As Mulder grasped the edge of the gurney to his left to stay on his feet, Scully swung a gun from the back of her suit trousers, trying to aim it at McGivers. "Let us out of here," she slurred. "Wherever here is."

"I would like nothing more," McGivers said sadly. "I should tell you that that weapon will not work on me - and especially not here, in the game."

"Who are you really?" Scully managed. "Who do you work for?"

McGivers put her hands up in surrender. "Please, do not fire that in here. It would be a futile gesture."

Mulder put his left hand up. It covered Scully's on the gun. His finger pressed into hers. The gun went off.

McGivers jumped. She slapped a hand to her arm, grimacing in pain. "You should not have done that!" she gasped. "Now they will begin monitoring the game feed!" A light blue mist began to bubble out from between McGiver's fingers and their attempt to cover the wound.

Mulder squeezed his hand on Scully's. Another shot went wide of McGivers, but they heard glass smash.

McGivers jumped. "No! Stop! They will see this in your game stats and they will come for us! You have to run, now! It's the only way out - for all of us. I can turn off the last level and we can be free!" She scrambled for the remote in her pocket - she pressed the button again.

Scully's hand fumbled the gun. Mulder tried to hold onto both her and it, but it proved impossible. Scully began to sag. He dropped the gun and reached for her.

She felt herself falling; heard his voice calling for her. The bright lights got harsher, more direct. The cold blazed over her skin.

She had no idea how long she lay on the cold, metal floor. Waves of ice seemed to travel over her. She coughed, she twisted, she was on her side; she could see abruptly that she was not on the floor at all - it seemed very far off.

She panted in cold air, concentrated as her eyes started to focus. A low hum was all around her, white light so strong it made the room appear luminous. She recognised the click and whir of an air-conditioning unit firing up.

She pushed herself onto her back. Her eyes adjusted and the ceiling came into focus - metal, corrugated, very high up. She turned her head, squinted in the brightness. A hospital gurney was to her right. It was empty. Beyond that, another one - also empty. She pushed herself up to sit, to see as far as she could. Five more slabs were present - all empty. She twisted further to her right and saw a grey metal machine by the head of her gurney. Long tubes, some dripping, some dry, were hanging in a haphazard arrangement over the knobs and dials. She followed one tube up and realised it was hanging from a bag, covered in strange symbols she did not recognise. Her hands went to her top; she was reassured by the feel of cotton. She realised she was in the same clothes that she had been wearing when they boarded the plane from Washington.

"Mul—!" She gulped in air, coughs wracked it from her. She heaved in the cold, almost choking, almost letting the new feeling of nausea have its way. She concentrated on breathing. She stored air in her chest, saved it up for one desperate shout. " _Mulder!_ "

Nothing answered her. She coughed and gasped in air. Something made her push herself off the gurney. Her legs tried to give way; she grabbed for the metal with cold fingers. She landed almost face-first on the table, but a tremendous amount of willpower and not a lot of energy kept her upright. She lifted her head - and nearly fell again.

The gurney to the left of hers was occupied. She coughed and spluttered in angry relief. Wrenching herself round her gurney, she had to use her fingers to keep her upright. She ploughed on, step after step, until she was level with the occupant. She noticed he too was in the same t-shirt and jeans he had been wearing during the flight from Washington. Her hand fell to his shoulder and she twisted the cotton up in her palm, clenching it hard.

"Mulder," she rasped, yanking at the cotton. Her other hand went to his chest. She patted, over and over, and then her hand formed a fist and she began to thump at him.

He coughed and squirmed. His eyelids fluttered. She kept thumping. He tried to raise a palm. That's when she realised he was strapped down.

Her hands went to the buckles and she abused stiff fingers to tackle them. She ripped open the one over his arms and chest, then moved onto the next one lower down. His arm came up and grabbed her wrist. "Wha—?"

"Mulder, it's me," she whispered, a grateful tear leaking from her eye.

"Scully?" he asked, his voice hoarse, weary, scared. "Scully? Where are you?"

She grasped his hand and pulled to bring her head over him. She smoothed his hair back over and over, leaning down to assess his face, his eyes. "You're ok. It's me."

"Oh thank god," he heaved. "I had the weirdest dream."

"Can you get up?" she asked.

"I can't even see. It's too bright in here," he rasped. He coughed and dragged in air.

She unstrapped his legs, then went round the other side. "Ok, you're free - get up."

"Uh - I don't… I'm not even—"

She dragged herself around the table and put her hands to his face. "Look at me. We have to leave here, right now."

"Where are we?" he gasped.

"I don't know - which means we have to get outside. Come on, get up."

He put his hands to the edge and pushed, but it was a struggle filled with swear words and red faces to get him on his feet by the gurney. Scully grabbed him as best she could, fitting under his arm and heaving a palm back against his chest to save him face-planting on the cold floor.

"You - have to - walk out - of here," she puffed.

He towered over her, attempting to get his legs working. "I'm trying," he coughed. "What the hell happened to us?"

"We were in some kind of shared dream," she rasped. "That's the best I've got."

"This is wrong," he managed. "Something is very wrong here. Like I've forgotten something."

"We need to leave."

"My legs aren't working."

"Suck it up, Mulder - we have to move and we have to move _now_."

"When did _you_ wake up?" he asked, sounding a little hurt.

"About five minutes before you."

"Then give me four minutes and I'll run," he said.

She let him lean against the gurney. She sagged too, and he kept his arm round her, pulling her against his side. She leant her head on his shoulder and shifted closer to him, a part of her desperate for the heat.

"How long have we been in here?" he asked.

"I don't know. In the dream - that woman, McGivers. She said we never got off the plane. Did I hear that right?"

"You did," said a voice.

They couldn't even twist to see. They heard footsteps behind them but couldn't look.

Eventually a woman came round the side, one gurney away from them. "Hello again," she said. "I need you to remember - everything."

"McGivers," Scully muttered. "You're McGivers. What are you doing here? Where is this?"

"You shot her," Mulder coughed. He winced and squinted at McGivers. "She shot you, right? We both did. And blue stuff came out - I _saw_ it."

"Mulder," Scully said in fear. She grabbed at him, tried to get him to stand.

"Do not panic," McGivers said. "I am not here to harm you."

"What _is_ this place?" Scully demanded. "Why are we here? What have you done to us?"

McGivers spread her hands. "This is where we put our subjects through the trials. You have passed. You have won. But, as with all our subjects, you are to be recycled."

"Recycled?" Mulder snapped. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You are to be broken down into your base elements and re-introduced to the planet," she said sadly.

Scully stared. "Mulder," she said very slowly, "I think she means we're going to be mulch."

"We are leaving. Now," he said, pushing himself up.

"If they come here to recycle you and find you awake, they will do much worse," McGivers said.

"What's worse than a fate worse than death?" Mulder said with malicious sarcasm.

"They will run more situations on you - and will not allow you to die," she said quietly. "And… you will not be allowed to share a machine. Not again." She looked at Scully. "They will make you forget, and every time they restart the machine, you will carry out the assignment but somehow, you will feel someone is missing. You will not remember who he is, or why you need to find him, but it will make itself part of your game." She glanced at Mulder. "How you deal with it, over and over, will be how they learn about you. And loss."

"My ass," Mulder growled. "Show us the way out, if you're so eager for us to leave."

McGivers stepped back. "I will show you the way out. But you must do one thing before you leave."

"What?" Mulder demanded.

"You must destroy everything we have here. I cannot continue this existence, performing these tests. I used to think it was my calling, and then my job, but now… It is abhorrent."

Scully pushed at Mulder's arm. "Let's go."

He frowned. "But—"

"You heard the woman - let's go," Scully urged. "We don't have a lot of time. Let's do as she says."

Mulder stared in disbelief. Scully yanked at his arm and he was drawn after her as she marched toward McGivers.

They walked out of the hangar and found themselves in a cold metal corridor. The two agents had a chance to check for their weapons, but found they had been taken from them.

The corridor went round a corner and came to a dead stop. A grey door barred their way but McGivers seemed anything but perturbed. She hovered a hand over the black keypad by the lock. She did not move, but the buttons pushed themselves in sequence.

Abruptly the door jumped open an inch. Mulder, now much more able to stand by himself, put a hand to the door as it swung open. He stepped through. He stopped dead.

Scully hurried after him, worried by his lack of movement. She hauled in a breath at the sight that greeted her.

Tall glass bell jars filled the entire hangar space. Each one was filled with dark brown, shifting liquid. Some of them had sediment at the bottom a foot high, while in others it was still swirling, the lumps and bumps evident as they whooshed around. Long pipes were attached to the top, presumably where they had been filled.

"What are these?" Mulder whispered.

McGivers stepped around them and began to walk off, threading her way through. "Hurry, please."

Scully grabbed Mulder's elbow and pulled him after her. They followed until a splashing sound made them stop. Scully let him go and went to a tank to her right. Dark brown fluid, thick and gloopy, was being flushed into the glass. It splattered against the insides, but this did not deter her from leaning both palms on the glass and trying desperately to see what was in the curious mix of lumps and grains.

"What _is_ all this?" she whispered.

Mulder's face suddenly shifted from innocent fascination to horror. He went up behind her and put a hand to her shoulder. He tried to ease her away from the glass. She didn't appear to want to move. He pulled harder and she stumbled back. "I don't think you want to know," he said.

She turned to look up at him. "What? What is it?"

"I think it's… people," he said.

She spun back to the jar. "You have go to be…" Her voice trailed away. "These are the other test subjects? This is what they mean by 'recycled'?"

He looked around. "There have to be hundreds of tanks here - how many people does it take to fill just one of these?"

She stumbled backwards until she bumped into him. Without turning, her hand came up and grabbed his forearm. Her fingers slid down until she found his, and then she had clamped her palm to his larger one. "Mulder… Let's leave. Right now."

He pulled and she gladly followed him as they wended their way through the tanks. "McGivers!" he shouted. "Where did you go!"

Scully caught sight of something between the tanks. "There! That way!" She heaved and he was pulled after her.

Squeezing through curvatures of glass she suddenly did _not_ want to touch, she was yanked to a grinding halt as her grip on his hand hoiked her backward. She looked back to find his bigger frame stuck between tanks.

"Keep going," he urged. "I'll go around."

"Don't lose me!" she cried, backing up and turning toward the next tank. She dodged round it, glancing over her shoulder to see something far to her right, coming around the tank. She kept on, trying to make a straight line toward the square, black shape behind the far tanks. "I think I see a door!" she called.

"Head for it!" Mulder called back.

She broke out of the forest of tanks to find two tall, dark doors facing her. She heaved a sigh of relief. Studying the set up revealed only the closed entrance and a red fire extinguisher by each side. Frowning at the incongruousness, she nevertheless put her hand out for the door handle.

She heard something behind her and raced to grab the handle. But a hand clamped round her wrist to stop her.

"Wait," Mulder said.

She sagged in relief. "Don't _do_ that! I thought you were her - or one of whoever it is she's so scared of!"

He let her go. "We don't know what's beyond the door."

"It has to be better than this, Mulder." She turned her attention back to the door. She yanked on the handle and hauled it open.

It swung inward. She looked up into the face of a tall, wide-set man of indeterminate colour. She had a moment to be startled - before he reached for her. She gasped and stepped back. The man lunged. She leapt to her side - and Mulder collided with the man in a perfectly-executed shoulder-ram that should have sent them both to the floor.

But the man simply let Mulder pound into him and bounce off. He bent down and grabbed the slighter Mulder round the throat and squeezed. Mulder coughed and swung a fist up with all his strength. It connected with the man's head but did not seem to have an effect.

Black spots crowded Mulder's vision. And then something bright red crashed into the man's head and drove him to the floor.

Mulder collapsed to his hands and knees and sucked in grateful air.

Scully dropped the fire extinguisher and wiped her hands together. "Come on," she panted.

Mulder pushed himself up. She snatched at his arm and they ran through the doors.

.

* * *

 _And you thought we were nearly done… BUAH HA HA HA HAAAAA_

 _Thanks to everyone for reading so far - yes there a just a few more chapters left to go. :)_


	11. For the World is Hollow

**ELEVEN**

 **For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky**

.

The lights were harsh, interrogating. Scully shielded her eyes from the sheer brilliance, even as her other hand squeezed harder at the warm arm being dragged behind her.

Mulder yanked her to a stop. "Airstrip," he managed. He put his hands on his knees, panting in air. "She wasn't lying. This is DeSoto Airport. We've been here the whole time."

"Then how did they get us off the plane?" she demanded. "None of this makes any sense - I remember arriving, disembarking, the motel… deputies and - and - and Sheriff Carson - and _everything_."

"I remember a peluda and everyone pitching in to kill it," he grunted. "Doesn't mean it happened."

"But why do this?" she demanded.

"You heard her. Her 'people' were testing us. They do say the way to judge a civilisation is by their games. Or is it their prisoners? I forget."

"Mulder… I don't think we should be here."

He straightened up in time to see her point upwards. His gaze went up - and encountered a helicopter, still several hundred yards away, but definitely on a straight line toward the hangar they were still in front of.

"Run?" he hazarded.

She took off across the tarmac. It took him a second or two to kick himself into gear after her. They pounded across the blackness only to have some kind of searchlight follow them from above.

Until new lights, a protest of sound, made them skid to identical halts. A dark blue car screeched to a stop a few yards away. The driver's window went down and McGivers' head came out. "Get in!" she shouted.

Scully didn't think. She leapt for the rear door. Mulder climbed in after her and slammed it just as McGivers stamped on the accelerator.

"Why are you helping us?" Scully demanded.

The car spun and they were thrown around on the large back seat. McGivers didn't answer; she strained the car's every suspension strut and spring to bring them about-face. The sedan picked up speed - frighteningly so - as lights criss-crossed the tarmac searching for them.

Mulder grabbed Scully's shoulder to bolster them both as the car bounced up and over something - and then kept going. "Where are you taking us?" he called.

McGivers shifted gears and stamped again on the pedal. "They must not find you. Once you're outside their perimeter you'll be safe. Please just hang on a little longer."

"The perimeter?" Mulder asked. "What perimeter? What makes you think they'll stop at some line on a map? They have a _helicopter_."

"Because it is the agreement we made, Agent Mulder," she called over her shoulder. The car dipped so hard Scully could swear she could feel her lunch - from two days ago. They bounced up and jerked hard to the right as the car just kept on going. Scrubland and bushes, damp earth and weeds - it all flew by as the tyres did their best in a place they were never designed to go.

"What agreement? With whom?" he demanded.

"We had an agreement - with your government - to only operate within a certain area. We are allowed two sites at once. One is here, in DeSoto Parish. The other is… not in the Americas," she said. "We have to destroy the notes in my office."

"But that was a dream," Scully cried. "You said it was all part of some shared hallucination."

"Based on fact, Agent Scully," she said. "Give the people an inch of truth, and they will believe the next eleven of lies."

"Sounds about right," Mulder said under his breath. "So where are we going?"

"I am going to my real office, Agent Mulder." She steered round a particularly menacing rock in their path. "You two need to get to a car and leave the state."

"The state?" Scully spluttered. "It's got to be at least six hours to… where, Texas?"

"It's only four and a half hours to Mississippi, give or take traffic, if you take the I-20 East," McGivers called back.

Scully turned and glared at Mulder. He noticed, then shied away from her to open his side window and stick his head out. He drew back inside. "I don't see the helicopter," he said.

McGiver slowed the car. She checked her mirrors, then turned the headlights off to crawl along in the dark. Finally she stopped the car and turned in the seat. "Now then," she said, hooking both hands over the backrest. Her right one had a gun in it.

Mulder hastily reached for it - but she simply lifted it and proffered him the handle.

He froze, but then something in him clicked and he took it from her. He checked it was loaded, then the chamber. He looked back at her. "I don't understand."

"You two will escape the state," she said. "I will destroy my notes of your experiment, and all the evidence that you two actually passed the test and that _we_ killed the peluda."

"But why?" Scully asked. "This still doesn't make sense."

"No… It might," Mulder breathed. "What if… What if they were testing people, all different people, to find someone who could outsmart their little game? And we did it, Scully. We won." He looked at McGivers. "That's what you said, right? You said we were the only ones to figure it all out?"

"I did, Agent Mulder," she nodded. "What I need to do is destroy the evidence of your doing so. They can never know a couple of locals solved their impossible riddle, and they can never know it took two, not one."

"Why?" Scully asked. "If you destroy the notes and they don't know we beat it, won't they just keep experimenting - on more people - until they _do_ find someone who beats it?"

"Ho - wait a minute. She's right," Mulder said. "They have to know they've been beaten."

McGivers put a hand to her face. She rubbed at her forehead, then slid her fingers right down to swipe off her chin. "Let me ask you something," she said, glaring first at Mulder, and then Scully. "When you experiment on animals to see how clever they can get, what do you do if one day they become cleverer than you?"

Mulder looked at the loaded gun in his hand. "Shit."

"Precisely," McGivers nodded. She eyed Scully. "You. You can do it."

"What?" she asked.

"This is where we part company. I can move faster on my own. The notes must be destroyed, and the experiment discontinued." She paused. "I want you to shoot anyone who tries to stop you, Agent Scully. That gun has silver bullets in it. They will work."

"Don't be absurd!" Scully cried. "You're telling me to kill people - with silver bullets - to stop an _implied_ alien conspiracy that you _haven't even explained_ from wiping humans off the planet just because we solved a puzzle!"

"See? You understand completely," McGivers said.

Mulder hefted the gun in his palm. "Why silver?"

"Because everything we made, everything we brought here, is vulnerable to silver. Silver is toxic to us in the right quantities," she said.

"That's true of everyone," Scully said with enough exasperation to fill the boot of their getaway car.

Mulder looked at the gun in his hand. He looked at Scully. His eyes went back at the gun. Until Scully plucked it from his palm and rested it on her knee.

"This is all very distracting," she said coldly, "but you've illegally detained two federal agents for who-knows-how-long against their will, for reasons unknown. We have been lied to, drugged, used and most definitely abused. We are not going to let you run off into the night, Agent McGivers - we are taking you back to the FBI and you're going to tell this ridiculous story to Assistant Director Skinner, who I can assure you has far less patience for all this than I do."

McGivers gave a small smile. "I like you, Agent Scully, I really do. I wish we could have been friends. But please, I'm not Agent McGivers. There _is_ no Agent McGivers. Not in this reality."

"Do you have a name?" Mulder asked.

She turned a warm expression on him. "I do. But you could neither comprehend it nor pronounce it. So you can call me Marla."

"Where are you from?" he asked in a small voice. "I mean… _really_."

Again, an enigmatic smile played around her lips. "You never stop searching, do you, Agent Mulder?" She shook her head fondly. "I suppose we're all alike, in that regard." She took a deep breath, then let it out all at once. "A _very_ long time ago… when this new world had more land than people, tall ships arrived with foreigners on them. What they didn't know, as they tried to pioneer new lives for themselves here in the new world, was that we had already tried it. Only our tall ships didn't come from an old empire, they came from a journeying republic of people, who had been forced to leave their own home. I have heard your people call that place _Põ Tolo_." She paused. "You must take the car and escape. I will get to my office."

"To destroy files," he said.

"Yes."

"You can't do that," he argued. "I want to see them - we need to take them to Skinner with you as proof. We can't just—"

"Agent Mulder," McGivers interrupted. "While those files exist, you are both in mortal danger. You can have the truth, that is not in dispute. But you must weigh up how badly you want it. Files or Sc—. Or you _both_ being safe. Which do you want more?"

Mulder glared at her. McGivers appeared to wait.

Finally he looked at Scully. She lifted the gun to point it at McGivers. "We're going to your office," she said. "Drive."

"But you have to get out of here!" McGivers warned.

" _Drive_ ," Scully barked. McGivers stared at her, totally at a loss.

Mulder leant forward and rolled his eyes up to her. "Just go," he advised.

McGivers turned in the seat. She started the car, left the headlights off, and began to crawl the vehicle forwards.

.

ooOoo

.

"Anything?" McGivers whispered.

The two agents moved toward their side windows and peered out. Mulder opened his door as quietly as possible and stuck his head out, craning his neck to peer above the roof of the car.

"I don't see anyone," he hissed.

"Me neither," Scully whispered. "Let's go."

The three of them piled out of the car. They hurried across the scrub to a slight ridge, whereupon they stopped and crawled to the top. They surveyed the parking lot beyond their hiding place, but it was empty. Sat right next to the car park was a small building, made up of perhaps three offices and typical side rooms.

"Nobody here but us chickens," Mulder mused.

McGivers frowned at him, then shook her head and turned to Scully. "I will go inside. Assist me if you must, but I intend to burn down the office."

"Are you sure there's no other way?" Mulder protested.

"Of course I am sure," she said, somewhat angrily.

"Go," Scully said, waving the gun toward the building just beyond the car park.

McGivers got to her feet and jumped over the top of the line, hurrying down the other side. Mulder scrambled after her. Scully paused to look up at the night sky, then around at the emptiness surrounding her. She got up and followed silently, finding them both by the back door to the small complex.

McGivers was producing keys. She unlocked a fire exit door and they all slipped inside, the two agents keeping up with McGivers as she raced down the short hallway in the dark. She stopped outside a room and found more keys. The door squeaked open. She was the first one in.

Scully waited outside the door, the gun ready as it pointed lazily at the ceiling. She gestured to Mulder with her head and he went in.

He stopped dead. "This looks exactly as I remember it," he said, confused.

McGivers was pulling open several notebooks and leaving them on top of the desk. "Like I said, we used this as a base and made an exact copy. Your memories are real in that you experienced them, but _not_ real in that they did not happen outside of the experiment room."

He blinked. Then he noticed she was rifling through papers, leaving them on the floor to open more box files. "What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Propellent. To start a fire."

He turned and disappeared from the room. Scully watched him go, then leant around the doorjamb to look in. "When this place goes up, everyone will know what you've done," she said.

"I hope so," McGivers said with real energy. "I have endured this job for so long, because of one tiny infraction over a century ago. I think I have more than made up for it."

"Ignoring the 'hundred years' comment for now, what was this 'infraction'?" Scully asked.

"I… became fond of a… local. He was… kind to me. And I thought for a moment that we could… that I could experience what so many of your kind have." She did not pause in her searching. "When the original watcher noticed our relationship and reported me, the local was summarily recycled and I was sentenced to watching."

"When you say 'recycled', you mean killed. Like those people in the jars."

"It pains me to concur."

"And this original watcher… what happened to him?" Scully asked with a frown.

"He was rewarded; he went home."

"To this… _Põ Tolo_."

"No. Our civilisation has been wiped from our home. He went back to the journeying republic."

Scully raised her eyebrows. "Are you not allowed to fraternise with colleagues, or people you mix with in the course of your duties?"

"Not at all. Our elders take pride in us being a 'pure race'. It was felt that too much contamination would ruin us as a people."

Scully curled her lip in disgust. "Maybe wherever you really come from could do with some contamination."

McGivers smiled. "As I said, you and I could have been great friends." She looked over at Scully. "May I ask… why do you want to aid me in wiping out all the records? Agent Mulder has been very vocal about doing the opposite."

Scully didn't look at her. "I have been tested, over and over. In my job, in my private life, and physically in ways I did not want - by people who consider themselves outside the law. No-one should be able to do that - to anyone. Except God."

"And God does it for mysterious reasons?" she asked with a smile.

Scully glared at her. "Don't."

McGivers' face collapsed into apology. "I am sorry, Agent Scully. I did not wish to offend. I only wish to understand."

Scully heard a noise. She peered into the gloom, back toward the front door. Mulder was jogging back to them, a glowing red item in his hand.

"Cigar lighter," he puffed. "From the car."

Scully nodded him inside and he went straight to the papers on the desk, setting the cigarette lighter face-down. He blew on the side gently, watching the paper start to char. Abruptly a tiny yellow flame started up from the corner.

"Ah! Perfect!" McGivers grinned. She fanned at it and then grabbed up more papers, holding the corners in the flames.

Mulder stood back. "What now?"

"Now you two escape, Agent Mulder. I am very sure my people are already on their way here."

The sound of falling glass made Scully snap straight. She turned, her back still to the doorjamb. Her arm went out to point the gun deeper into the corridor. "I think someone just came in the front way," she whispered.

Mulder looked at the steadily growing pile of burning papers. He could not keep the resignation from his face. "Have you got this?" he asked McGivers.

"I have," she said. "Take the car. Go."

Mulder put his hand out. She paused to look at it. Then she stretched hers out slowly and shook his hand. "I don't know what to say," he offered.

She smiled. "I must admit, I was very excited when I heard that it was you two coming to us for an experiment." Her smile died. "But then I knew… I would have to make a choice. You two, or me."

"What will happen to you now?"

"I can never go home again," she said with a smile. "But that was never going to be a choice. Not at all."

He let his hand drop and turned to the door.

Scully moved back until she was against the far wall of the corridor. She kept the gun pointed down the hallway. "There's someone here," she whispered.

Mulder picked up a fire extinguisher from beside the door. "You see anyone, you shoot them."

"What if they work here?"

"No-one works here. And they should have used a key," he said. She began to walk slowly down the tiled walkway. Mulder turned his back to her and followed in reverse, gripping his fire extinguisher tight. They made it twenty feet before he stopped. "I think… there's someone behind us."

"There's definitely someone this way," she whispered.

"Then there are two of them."

"Or it's the acoustics." She heard a _whoomf_ from behind them and turned her head to look. A bright orange glow was now coming from the open office door.

McGivers put her hands to the doorjamb and leant her head out. "Success!" she cried happily. She stepped out of the room.

"McGivers!" Mulder shouted.

She gasped and jerked. And then she fell forwards to the floor.

A man stood over her, a strange, blue knife in his hand. He wiped it on his sleeve. His head snapped up to lock eyes with Scully.

"Federal agent!" she called at him. "Don't move!"

He wheeled his arm back with the knife ready in his hand. Mulder pressed his back against the wall.

Scully squeezed the trigger. The first shot hit him in the head - the next hit him where his heart should have been. He toppled backwards.

Mulder was already running toward McGivers. He dropped the fire extinguisher and collapsed to his knees next to her. "McGivers?" he demanded. He rolled her to her back and put a hand under her head, grasping her hand firmly in his.

She smiled. "Marla," she said quietly. "It's a shame. Really."

Mulder looked up as Scully checked for a pulse in the man on the floor. She shook her head, then opened his eye. She tried his wrist, too. Then she stepped over him and crouched down to McGivers. She felt for a pulse in her neck. Mulder watched her frown. "What can we do?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Scully said, eyeing the rivulets of blue liquid seeping from McGivers' mouth and from one eye.

"We can't let her die," he argued.

"There is nothing… to be done," McGivers whispered. "The silver… is already spreading through my blood. Poisoning me. And there is no-one on this planet… who can replace it."

Mulder gripped her hand. "But…"

"Deputy Mouton," she mused, her eyes going past him to appraise the ceiling. "It would have been nice."

Mulder's mouth worked but nothing would come out. He looked helplessly at Scully.

She wiped a hand over her forehead and looked down at her. "I'm sorry," she said wretchedly. "Tell me what to do to save you!"

"You have already done more than enough," she smiled. "The rest is not up to you."

"I wish I knew what to do," Scully urged. "I wish I could _help_ you. I'm sorry."

McGivers swallowed. "I am the sorrier. I gave you two everything you wanted, and then it was taken away." She gulped in breath, then let it out again. "But… while the peluda was not real… everything you said and did… was."

"What things?" Scully asked gently. "McGivers?"

"Marla?" Mulder urged. "Marla?"

She smiled up at him. "I wish all my days… could have been like this one." Her eyes rolled up slowly. They closed.

Her entire body went limp. The two agents stared in disbelief, in anger, in frustration.

Scully put her hand to Mulder's arm, pulling him free. His fingers let go of McGivers' with great reluctance.

Something popped and then banged so loud they both jumped in their skins. As it was they collapsed to their behinds in the suddenly sweltering hallway.

"The fire," Scully realised. "Let's go."

"But… Marla," he began.

"Let's go! We can't move her in time. We're already breathing in smoke, Mulder!"

She got up and yanked at his arm, pulling him all the way back to the fire exit. As she swung the door open into the night air he stopped and looked back.

"But she's everything, Scully!" he argued. "She's proof! She's not even human!"

"If we go back in there to drag her out, we die, Mulder," she snapped. "Which do you want? Do you want to be a partial witness or a dead man?"

He turned to look at her. "But _everything_ , Scully!"

"We can't change that!"

"I didn't get my peluda! I didn't get scientific proof! I didn't get files or corroboration of _any_ of this!"

"What good is proof if you die getting it?" she demanded.

"But we can't just leave it all here!"

"We can and we will," she snapped.

"Then we leave here with nothing! Like nothing ever happened!"

"But _we'll_ know, Mulder! _We'll_ remember!"

"So what? What does that prove?" he shouted. She opened her mouth but he turned in the doorway. He put a foot back inside.

She lurched forward and grabbed his arm. He tried to shake her off but she heaved with all of her weight. He was caught off-balance and tumbled out of the door. He fell backwards off the step and slammed into the tarmac. The heat got nearer to their exit, the warm orange glow now bringing evil black smoke with it as it crept closer to them.

He got to his hands and knees on the tarmac of the parking lot. "You go, Scully!" he cried. "I'll go back for—"

She put a foot in his back and pushed. He was thrown face-first to the ground. Her knee went into his spine and she flipped his right arm across his back. Before he knew it he was trying to squirm out of an expertly-executed arm-lock.

His head tried to raise as he grunted in pain and frustration. "Get off me!"

"Listen to me!" she growled. "We are not going back into that _burning building!_ "

"But we need—"

"Mulder - so help me!" she raged. "You are the most stubborn son of a bitch I have _ever met!_ "

His forehead fell to the tarmac and it wobbled, tilting to push his cheek into the gritty surface. "Help me with this one thing, Scully. Or we leave with _nothing_." He lifted his head and bumped it into the ground. "Nothing. We always come away with _nothing_." He let out a long huff. "We can't leave her there. We can't just walk away while she's in there." He let out a small, muffled cry of injustice, of frustration. All of his muscles let go of their anger.

She relaxed her hold, sliding to sit next to him on the ground. She rested her hand on his back. His face turned toward her. "Not nothing," she said quietly. " _We_ always come away - alive."

He put his hands under him and forced himself to roll onto his back. His full-on petulant pout was directed at the far away stars as Scully's hand slipped down to rest on his t-shirt. He put a hand up and covered hers, trapping it to his chest. "Scully?" he asked quietly.

She leant over him, watching the way his eyes roamed around the night sky. "What?"

He shifted his head to adjust his gaze, and suddenly his eyes were boring straight through to her soul. "Scully?"

"What?" she said. She leant over him, bringing her face closer to his.

"That building behind you is on fire."

She shook her head. Then she got up and dusted herself down. He did likewise, before turning toward the ridge beyond the car park.

"Where do we go?" she asked. "The car should still be there, right?"

"Someone came here to kill her. We should leave."

"Where to?"

He spun to favour her with a weighty smile. "Well a crime's been committed," he said. "Shouldn't we go to the Sheriff's office?"

Her eyes widened. "Absolutely."

.


	12. Through the Looking Glass

**TWELVE**

 **Through the Looking Glass**

.

The car hurtled into the parking lot, Mulder taxiing it up to the front door. Scully piled out and raced him inside.

They stopped to take stock.

The same Sheriff's office surrounded them - the chairs by the windows that served as walls, the smell of the air-con and the sounds of deputies milling about in the early morning light.

Scully went straight to the front desk. "Hi, hello," she said quickly. A woman looked up from the chair - and immediately Scully saw she was most definitely _not_ Deputy Nancy Surette. Instead her badge said 'Dupuis'. Scully pushed her hair from her face, wondering what it must look like. "Oh. Uh… I need to see the sheriff," she said.

Deputy Dupuis smiled. "Oh, I'm sorry - he's not in until eight. If it's urgent I can help you."

"He?" Scully echoed.

"Excuse me," Mulder interrupted, appearing over Scully's left shoulder. "What's the name of the sheriff here?"

"Waters," Dupuis said. She looked them up and down slowly, taking in the soot-splotched t-shirts and jeans, the unkempt hair and underlying air of a Walk of Shame about them. "You and your wife are from out of town, huh?"

Scully straightened up. "We're FBI agents. We need all your available deputies to attend a murder scene at the airport."

"What? A murder? FBI? What?" she gasped. "Let me get the sheriff on the phone, uh, Mrs…?"

" _Agent_. Agent Dana Scully. This is Agent Fox Mulder," she said. "We also need to call Washington."

"Oh, uh, of course," Dupuis gabbled. "You got your ID there?"

Mulder patted down his grimy t-shirt. "It was in my coat."

Scully felt in her trouser pockets. "Mine was… right here. They must have taken it." She looked at Dupuis. "Call Washington for us - ask for Assistant Director Skinner. Tell him Agents Scully and Mulder need to speak to him. He'll verify all this."

"Right," she allowed, very much unimpressed. "Why don't you folks take a seat there and I'll see what I can do."

Scully turned and shot Mulder a look that was all about annoyance. He put a hand to her arm and walked her over to the chairs by the front window.

She flumped down in the seat. "Who is this Sheriff Waters?" she asked. "How can he be the sheriff when we dealt with Carson?"

Mulder ambled closer to the empty chair next to her. But something caught his eye and he turned to the wall, his hands on his hips, to read plaques and names. "Uh… I don't think any of the people we've talked to this week were… really here."

"Why do you say that?"

He looked at her, raising a hand to point at the plaque nearest him. "These names… None of these deputies look familiar. And the deputies we met? Their names aren't here."

"So where did they come from?" Scully asked, confused.

"I have a horrible feeling… they were like us," he said. His hand dropped and he crossed to the chair to her right, collapsing into it. "McGivers said all of this… it didn't happen. At least… not on the outside. I think… maybe all the people we spoke to, that we met - they were taken for the experiment, the same as we were. I think they were real people, picked for this job because of us. And I think they were 'recycled' when we were brought out of it."

She stared at him in dawning horror. "My god, Mulder… were they in those tanks as we were leaving? You don't think there actually _were_ people in those glass tanks, do you?"

"I don't know what to believe," he sighed. He sat forwards, putting his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

She looked out of the window and let things tick across her brain.

"Agents?" came a call.

They looked over to see Deputy Dupuis waving a telephone receiver at them. "Assistant Director Skinner is asking for you."

Mulder got up and fairly jogged across to the phone, taking it from her politely. "Sir?"

"Mulder? What the _hell?_ " came a familiar voice. "I send you out there to head up a murder investigation and you disappear on me. This is no time for you to go AWOL on one of your pet projects!"

"What?" he blurted.

"Don't you 'what' me! You're lucky you still have a job! Now put Scully on the line before I do something _you'll_ regret later!"

Mulder heard boots behind him and turned. "It's for you," he said neatly, handing the receiver to Scully.

She took it from him with a huff, moving closer to the desk to avoid yanking the phone cord any harder from its mooring. "Sir?" she asked darkly.

"Agent Scully, please explain to me where exactly you two have been for the past three days," Skinner demanded.

"Three…?" She took a deep breath. "That's… actually hard to explain, sir. But if you'll—"

"Answer me truthfully, Scully - did Mulder put you up to this? Whatever 'this' is?"

"No, sir," she said, indignant. "He did not 'put me up to' anything. In fact we have a murder to report and I discharged a weapon into an assailant. I need a clean-up crew and forensics to meet us at DeSoto Airport immediately." She paused to glance back at Mulder. "Evidence is being destroyed as we speak."

There was a silence. Then she heard Skinner give a slight sniff. "Fine. I'll get all available people down there - I'll contact the branch office direct."

"Agent McGivers, sir?"

"Who?"

"The agent at the branch office - who are they?" she asked.

"Agent Landry," he said, surprised. "Why?"

She cleared her throat. "The airport, sir. Agent Landry needs to meet us as the airport: we need a team at the storage hangar a few hundred yards from the emergency runway. We're leaving the Sheriff's Office now by car."

"You're not going anywhere, Agent Scully. I want you and Mulder to stay exactly where you are. The less you deal with this clean-up the better. Agent Landry is capable of following up. She can get evidence of whatever it is you've been up to."

"But sir—"

"Agent Scully," he interrupted. "You have some reporting to do."

She heard the line click and handed the phone back to Dupuis, who looked a lot more alert. Scully folded her arms, mostly out of the chill of the air-con. "We need an ambulance and a fire truck - there's a building on fire out on the old commercial estate."

"Right!" Dupuis nodded. "I'll call the sheriff."

"One more thing," Mulder said, leaning a hand on the counter. "Was there ever a Sheriff Carson here?"

Dupuis paused. "Why… yes. She was the sheriff before Waters took over - four years ago."

"Four years?" Scully asked. "But—"

"Thanks," Mulder said. "The sheriff?"

"Yes sir," she said, going back to the phone.

Mulder hooked a hand around Scully's elbow and drew her away from the desk. He bent his head down to hers as they walked. "I don't think I understand what's going on here… But I think whoever picked up Carson and the deputies, and used them for this experiment? They've been here a long time, and they have a way of storing people to use whenever they want."

She brought them to a stop. "Mulder," she said, glaring up at him. She looked around them, noting how the few people in the station were watching them. "Mulder, you're saying that everything McGivers said was true - that 'her people', whoever they are, kidnap people, freeze them in time with no ill effects and no time loss issues, and then revive them as part of this - this - _game_ whenever they need them."

He made his hand drop. "How else do you explain all this?"

She folded her arms. "Not with aliens who bleed blue and hallucinogenic machines that give us both the same mad dream."

"Then… what was the name of the deputy on the desk? When _we_ were here?" he asked.

"Surette."

"And what was the name of the mysterious pathologist who never turned up for work?"

"Ah… Lawrence. Lawrence Fete."

"And you did three autopsies, right? On two construction workers and a judge?"

"Yes - I was right there, with my hands in their cavities," she tutted.

"So where are those bodies? Where is Sheriff Carson? Why don't we recognise any of these people working here?" he asked evenly.

She looked past him to the windows, shaking her head. "I don't know, Mulder."

"And where is the peluda that we shot and killed?"

"I…" She turned to look back at him. "I don't have any answers for you."

"And where are our guns, our badges, our luggage from the flight?"

"That is a _very_ good question," she said. She ran a hand through her hair. "Skinner said it had been three days."

"So we must have been in that machine for three days."

"Were we?" she pressed.

He swung his hands out in mystification. "Where else did the time go? Skinner said it's been three days, Scully - _Skinner_ did. He's on the outside of this game - always has been. If three days has passed for him, then it must have done for everyone outside the game."

"But you're saying we were on those tables, with that thing in our heads, for three days," she argued.

"Then test us, Scully. Do some test that shows we've been on sedatives or whatever it was that kept us under. We were pretty wobbly when we were woken up - something that strong must take time to break down, right? Don't you want to know what we were drugged with?" He paused. " _After_ we've helped this branch agent."

"Wait," she said swiftly, grabbing his arm. "Mulder… Skinner doesn't want us down with any clean-up crews. He wants us outside of it all so we can file reports."

"Reports," he scoffed.

"Which means…" She turned and hauled him along behind her as she stalked round the deputy's desk and round to the morgue. Voices protested and someone followed, but all she felt was her hand on his cool appendage and the blood raging in her temples.

.

ooOoo

.

Scully sat back from the diminutive test tubes in the wooden rack. She folded her arms and looked over at her partner. "Well, there we have it. We were most definitely drugged, and it's still in our systems. In fact, it may take up to seven days to disappear."

"Like marijuana?" he asked innocently. She looked at him - just looked. He shrugged and crossed the morgue to stop by the test tubes in front of her.

"This is commonly-bought sedative, Mulder, it's not some top secret government MK-Ultra recipe," she sighed. "It's mixed with a few unconventional items, but it's nothing dangerous or in itself newsworthy."

He picked up a test tube, shaking it slightly before he lifted it up to the light. "So what you're saying is," he mused, "we need some kind of evidence from the branch agent at the scene."

"Yes, and Skinner said to leave it well alone. Apparently Agent Landry will have a report for us when she's done picking over what's left of the hangar at the airport and McGivers' office."

"But Scully," he said, slotting the test tube back into the rack, "if Agent McGivers wasn't a real agent, and she was never here… whose office did we help her set fire to?"

Scully looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows. They questioned each other in silence for a long, long moment.

The door gave a squeak and then opened behind them. Mulder turned to see Deputy Dupuis walking in, a few sheets of paper in one hand and a duffle in the other. "I got rooms booked for you at a motel, agents, and I got someone at the airport to look for your luggage. They're not hopeful - nothing's been brought in or picked up in the past three days, when your plane came in."

"But we're on the passenger manifest, right?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, you are. Other than that, there's nothing to say you departed the flight under unusual circumstances - nothing at all." She stopped in front of him and handed him the papers. "It's all there. I've brought you some uniforms - you look like you could use a change of clothes."

He lifted the neck of his t-shirt and gave the worn cotton a sniff. "You could be right."

She handed over the duffle and walked out. Mulder dropped it to the empty gurney and unzipped it, pulling out two white cotton t-shirts and two brown deputy's uniform shirts. One set was significantly smaller than the other.

He held them up and checked their sizes before bundling one of each together. "I think these are for you," he said.

She turned and took them from him. "Thanks. Turn around."

He did as instructed, but pulled his greying, smelly t-shirt off over his head. Dumping it on the gurney, he instead picked up the fresh white one and pulled it on, next taking the brown shirt and pulling the sleeves on. He didn't bother buttoning it up; the first thing he did was roll the sleeves up past the elbows.

"Done," Scully said.

He turned to find she was similarly dressed, but her female uniform had short sleeves and she had already buttoned it up, leaving the top two loose.

"Wow," he said with a smile.

"What?" she asked, trying to smooth her hair back into something that resembled calm.

"You look like a strippergram."

"Mulder," she tutted.

"No, a really classy, expensive one," he said earnestly.

She rolled her eyes and picked up her used t-shirt, folding it up and throwing it on top of his discarded one. "So what now?" she asked, leaning on the gurney with one hand.

"Well usually music starts and you sing a little song, or a rhyme, as you unbutton your shirt," he said, his face a pretence at seriousness.

She half smiled. "You know, it's exactly that attitude that makes women think all men are misogynistic cave-men, capable of fitting a 'sexy' lens over anything a woman can ever wear, and subsequently condemning her for her clothing being slutty because it's all _you_ think about."

"I love it when you talk socio-politics at me."

She pointed at him. "Don't make me hurt you."

His face cracked into a grin and he opened his mouth.

The door opened again. "Agents?" said a shorter, stockier young man. "Sheriff Waters is back from the scene."

They hurried out of the morgue, back round toward the front desk. Deputies were crowded round, a lot more than she remembered. A taller man was in the middle.

"All of you, quiet now!" he cried. The gaggle of law enforcement officers went silent. "Now Agent Landry and I have been over every inch of the scene of the fire, and between our two teams we found no bodies at all. At this point I'm inclined to say that the two FBI agents that wandered in here earlier were mistaken, especially about—"

"Excuse me, Sheriff Waters?" Scully asked.

He halted and then turned to see Scully and Mulder appear from his left. "Well well well," he said with a broad smile. "Never seen an FBI agent look so fetching. All you need is some music."

"Thanks - I was hoping I was your type," Mulder said with a smile that was more a feral display of teeth than anything else.

" _Special Agent_ Scully," she said tightly. "I have some questions for you."

"She's the scientist; she knows what to look for in arson cases," Mulder added.

"Oh - uh - of course," the sheriff stammered. A few of the deputies exchanged secret smiles. Waters cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should go through to my office."

Scully folded her arms. "What did you find at the burnt-out offices?"

"Offices?" he asked, confused. "It was the hangar that was on fire, Agent Scully."

"Then who's looking into the office fire?" Mulder asked.

"Agent Landry is there now - she's going over it very carefully," he said. "Look, I need coffee and from what I hear from Landry, you two are your own outfit's missing persons case, so why don't we sit down and find out what's happened here, huh?"

Mulder and Scully exchanged a glance. Then she turned and gestured to the door with her head. "After you, Sheriff Waters."

"Mighty kind," he nodded, before walking off.

They followed him back round the desk to the office just down the corridor from the morgue, walking in to find it exactly as they had left it after allegedly watching a videotape with Carson.

He went around his desk and sat down. "Now then," he said, indicating the two empty chairs with his left hand. Mulder pulled both up to the desk and the two agents sat. Waters looked them up and down. "Shall we start at the beginning?"

"We were sent here to look into the murders of two construction workers," Scully said.

"Now, see, that bit I get," Waters nodded seriously. "We thought it was some land deal gone sour, and when the two people died, well… a lot of folks here jumped to conclusions. Washington got wind of it and they said they'd send you two down. Only… you never showed up."

"What?" Mulder blurted. "We've been here for three days."

"Mulder," Scully bit out. He checked his mouth and waited. She looked back at Waters. "What's happened since our flight landed, sheriff?"

"I'll tell you what I know - most of it from Agent Landry," he said. "She called me in the evening your flight landed. She wanted to know why you hadn't contacted her. That was June 14th, just about six o'clock."

"And then?" Mulder prompted.

"Well we checked the airport - didn't find you. We checked the passenger manifest. You were on it alright, but you just weren't at the airport. No-one remembers seeing you, and you didn't show up on the cameras as everyone left your plane. It was like you got off but you were invisible. Agent Landry said to wait you out."

"Seems legit," Mulder said sarcastically.

"Look, Agent Mulder," he said apologetically, spreading his hands, "we didn't know what to do. We don't get FBI down here, looking into random workers being killed. And we certainly don't get missing persons cases involving law enforcement. Agent Landry took charge; she put out an APB for you two, checked into your arrangements with your handler and your department - she couldn't find any trace of you." He leant back in his chair. "She also lead the whole case about the workers. She found the animal, and her and the deputies out there killed it stone dead just last night."

"Was it a peluda?" Mulder asked hastily.

"A what?" he asked, confused. "It was a wolf."

"A red wolf?" Scully asked.

"Grey, actually. Very rare this far south, but it's not impossible." He shook his head. "Now I don't know where you've been for three days, but Dupuis said something about you doing blood tests and finding sedatives in there?"

"We did," Scully said. "That's all we have to go on. We have yet to write up our reports."

Mulder straightened in his chair. "But we did find—"

"We did find _something_ ," Scully interrupted. She threw Mulder a warning glance. "We just need to get it all down in a report."

Waters looked from her to Mulder and back again. "Oh- _kay_ ," he allowed. "So… Agent Landry wants to check in with you when she gets back from the office building. You two ok with that?"

"Can we meet her there?" Scully asked.

"Sure, if you're that eager," Waters shrugged. "I would have thought you'd need a rest first."

"We really need to see what Agent Landry has," Mulder said.

"Suit yourselves. I can have a deputy drop you out there. Perhaps she'd like to hear your side of the story in all this," he said.

.


	13. Kobayashi Maru

**THIRTEEN**

 **Kobayashi Maru**

.

Agent Landry pushed long black hair from her cheek and pulled the pen from behind her ear. She scribbled down notes on several forms attached to a clipboard. The sound of a car behind her made her turn. She saw a sheriff's truck stop in the middle of the car park, between black rental cars and other trucks. She watched three people pile out.

Her eyes fell on the two former passengers and she straightened up, letting the clipboard fall to her side. "Wow. I had just about given up hope of you two ever appearing."

The shorter agent came right up to her. "McGivers?" she asked, confused.

"No - Landry," she said. She slotted the pen behind her ear and put her hand out. "Annette Landry. You must be Agent Scully?"

"Yes," she admitted, shaking her hand. Her eyes seemed to crawl all over Landry's face, as if searching for something. "Uh… This is… uh… Agent Mulder."

"Of course," Landry said with a relieved smile. "Nice to finally meet you." She looked them up and down. "Are you intact?"

Mulder stared for a long moment. Then he appeared to pull himself together. "Pretty much," he managed. "What have you found here?"

"Here?" she asked, turning to look at the smoking, blackened remains of some kind of building. Men and women in dark FBI jackets were stalking the scene, gloves, pens, sticks and plastic bags in their hands. "A stack of paperwork and some serious allegations," she said.

"How many bodies have you recovered?" Scully asked, folding her arms to look past her to the rubble.

"None. I got a call from Assistant Director Skinner at stupid o'clock this morning and came right down. The place was still burning itself out. By the time the fire truck arrived all I had was a theory about a gas leak."

"Gas leak?" Mulder protested. "There should be two bodies in here, Agent Landry. One male, one female."

"There's nothing and no-one," she shrugged. "The fire officers have been over every inch. It looks like someone started a fire to destroy the building on purpose, which leads me to believe there was something in here that they didn't want anyone else to see."

Scully turned from the ruins and shared a look with Mulder. He winced slightly and looked back at Landry. "What was this building for?" Scully asked.

"That's the thing - this building belongs to the Babineaux estate," she replied. "I don't know if you've heard of them, but they used to be an important family around here." She frowned at her notes attached to the clipboard. "But it wasn't being used. There was no power or water to it, no phone connection, nothing. It stands to reason that the only thing you'd destroy if you burnt this place down would be family history. Why anyone would do that, I just don't know."

"Have you found any filing cabinets?" Mulder asked.

"There's a lot of miscellaneous office equipment, yes. I intend to have it all sifted very carefully to see what we turn up. Right now I'm open to just about any reason anyone could have for doing this," she sighed.

Mulder walked off past the two women, heading toward the rubble. He stepped into it without fear, wandering through the piles of smoking shapes and sharps.

Scully folded her arms. She watched him for a moment, then turned to Landry. "And the hangar?" she asked.

"We have a forensics team going over it right now," she said. "At best, it was just an accident in a room that appeared to house a lot of test tanks. At worst, it's terrorism designed to somehow incapacitate the airport."

"Terrorism?" Scully scoffed.

Landry was quiet for a moment. She turned and her eyes followed Mulder's sad trip through the rubble. "What's he looking for?" she asked.

"If I ever figure that out, at least one of us could die happy," Scully said under her breath. She glanced up at Landry to see her frowning at her in confusion. She shook her head. "Never mind."

"I just can't fathom why this place was destroyed," Landry said. "I would really appreciate seeing your report on what happened here, when you're ready - as well as where you two have been for the past three days."

"When we're done writing it all up we'll send it straight over."

"Scully!" Mulder called suddenly. They both looked over to see him crouching in the raked remains.

She nodded to Landry and made her way through to him. She stopped by his right shoulder, looking down to see his hands pushing the ends of timbers and lumps of black out of his way. "Careful, Mulder," she warned.

His palms found solid flooring underneath. He brushed ash and soot out of his way. "Here," he said sadly. "Right here."

"What was?" she asked.

"McGivers. She was right here." He pushed more ash and soot. "Look."

A faint outline was marking the warped and blackened wood underneath. A faint silvery-blue line, like a tide-mark of chalk, had stained a fuzzy pattern into the wood.

Scully put her hand on his shoulder. "Oh my god," she breathed. "Is that all that's left of her?"

"Maybe." He looked up at her. "Everything she was, everything she did to us - for us… It's all gone, condensed into this faint mark on our world." He looked down at it again. His hand went out for the edge.

"Don't," she said quickly. "We'll get samples, get photos. We _will_ get evidence that she was here, Mulder. She _did_ exist, and we can prove it."

His hand halted. Then it crossed him to land on her hand on his shoulder. She gave his t-shirt a reassuring squeeze.

"What do you have there?" Landry said from behind them.

Scully pulled her hand free and turned to face her as she stopped behind them. "We have a trace of a body. We need forensics over here to document all of this - I want a chemical analysis of the marks here, and the usual crime scene photos. But I want it done at as microscopically a level as you can, Agent Landry."

"Of course," she said with a nod. She pulled the pen from behind her ear and scribbled something on her clipboard. "Do you want to hang around for that?"

"We should," Mulder said, getting to his feet and wiping his hands together.

"I think you should get a shower and some rest," Landry said. "You have yet to explain where you've been for three days. At a guess I'd say lost in the swamp." She turned and put two fingers in her mouth. She let out a piercing whistle that made every agent currently picking through remains stop and look at her. "Site of a victim!" she called. "Spec Analysis team, please!" she ordered. Three people converged on her. She turned back to the two agents. "Well then. Excuse me while we trawl this place for all we can find."

.

ooOoo

.

Mulder pulled the sheriff's truck up to the motel door. He turned the key in the ignition to cut the engine, then sat back. "We should be out there with Landry," he muttered.

Scully released her seat belt. "She already had a team out there, Mulder. We'd just be getting in the way. Besides, she was right - we need to clean up and find out what's been done to us for the past three days." She put her hand to the door release but paused. "You ok?"

"Not really," he sighed.

"Look… The best thing we can do right now is get all this down in a report. Once we've done that… things will look… ordered. Easier to follow. We can compare notes and work out what exactly happened - both 'out here' and in the game."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Right."

"So get out of the car, Mulder. We need to get into this motel that Dupuis booked for us."

He undid his seat belt and climbed out of the truck, Scully opening her door and sliding down to the ground. He locked it up and they traipsed toward the front door.

"Is this the same motel?" Scully asked as he opened the door and left his hand at the top, for her to walk under.

"Well the name is different but it does look the same. Maybe ours in the experiment was a duplicate of this one," he shrugged.

She glanced at him, took in how exhausted he looked, and then turned resolutely and marched up to the counter. She made use of the silver push bell on the desk. It _ting_ ed once, twice, and then a side door opened and a woman appeared. Older and more tired than the two agents put together, she nevertheless came to the counter and smiled up at them both. They stared at her, taking in her features, the familiar look and sound to her.

"Good morning," she said with cheer. "A double for you folks, then?"

"Ah, no - two rooms, please," Scully said slowly, still staring in disbelief.

"Oh dear," the woman replied, her smile fading as she opened a large book on the counter. "Well I hope you work it out."

Mulder gawked, apparently unable to think of anything to say. Scully looked at him in worry, but then her eyes went back to the woman as she put her hand on the counter. "Ma'am, we're with the FBI," she said, her tone curious. "We're in town on an investigation and we'd like two rooms, please."

"FBI?" she asked, surprised. "What could you possibly be investigatin' in this part of the world? —Wait, is this that dig that went bad? Is it cos it's money?"

Scully glanced up at Mulder, then looked back at her. "Uh, well, we couldn't comment—"

"Ah - yeah, yeah it is," Mulder interrupted, his face still vexed by great mystery. He hovered closer to the counter. "Shame about those two workers, huh?"

"Nasty business," the woman sighed. "Still, old Judge Lanoux warned 'em. He did about all he could. If they want to go and ignore the warnings, then it's on them, I say."

Mulder locked eyes with Scully. "We _have_ been here before."

"Here? Not that I recall," the woman said.

"Are you Rose? Rose Ledet?" Scully asked.

"Me? No. Ronnie Masters," she said. "Please to meet you." She pushed a large open book toward Scully and a pen. "Rooms three and eight, sign right there. They got en suites and TV, even."

Scully just looked at the book. She swayed around to look up at Mulder. He shrugged and she turned back to pick up the pen. Her eyes went down the list of previous guests, but did not spot her handwriting anywhere. She hastily scribbled in details and pushed the book back toward Ronnie.

"So you payin' for this or Uncle Sam?" Ronnie asked. She turned away to a large wooden board behind her, resplendent with brass keys a little on the large side. She picked two and put them on the counter.

"Ah… the Sheriff's Office, for now," Scully said. "Deputy Dupuis over there said she had this booked."

"Oh yes, that's right. She said two agents would be down - I didn't ask what kind, mind you." She turned away and picked up a dark coloured duffle bag. "She said you'd need this." She slid it onto the counter by the keys. "Three for you, Miss Scully, and eight for you, Mr…" She looked down at her book. "Mulder. You go right out the door here and turn right - head along and you'll see three and eight. They're opposite each other."

"Thanks," Scully said.

"Didn't want to put you folks too close together - Vegas money says—"

"I snore," Mulder interrupted faintly.

She blinked, surprised. "You beat me to it," she grinned. "That's what I was gonna say."

"Lucky guess," he said as he picked up the keys.

"Well… off you go then. You need anything, you just holler. I'm on the desk here all day."

"Thank you," Scully said. She picked up the bag and followed Mulder out of the reception and turned right, down the aforementioned path.

They walked down the corridor in silence, until Mulder paused by the door marked 'three' in cursive writing. He studied both keys before handing one to Scully. "So… When do we talk about how weird that just was?" he asked.

She blew out a long huff. "First things first. Shower. That'll help me get all of this in order before I try to write it all out on motel notepaper."

"Good thinking," he nodded.

She opened up the duffle and found more clothes inside. "Hey, what do you know - matching uniforms," she grumped. He delved in and between them they had shared out fresh clothes. "Wait, there's something else in here," Scully said. She reached in and brought out two clear plastic wallets, both stuffed to the brim with toiletries.

"Louisiana is the _best_ ," Mulder grinned. She handed him one and threw hers, and her new clothes, back into the duffle.

"Stay out of trouble," she warned.

"Yes, Scully."

She glanced at him, repressed a smile, and let herself into her room. As she closed it behind her she heard Mulder's door shut.

.

ooOoo

.

Scully sat at the desk under the motel window, pondering the words on the page in front of her. She leant back and ran her hands through her damp hair. The phone next to the bed rang. She got up and crossed to it. Her hand went out and it was fair to say, took its time over levering it out of the cradle to put it to her ear. "Scully."

"Agent Scully - it's Landry," said a firm voice. "I have a full report on both fires for you. Also, we're waiting for the results to come back from Washington about the residue Agent Mulder found in the rubble. So far the techs here have nick-named it 'space dust'," she added, a smile in her voice.

"Space dust? Why?" Scully frowned.

"It's not carbon-based, for one. Seems more like silicon, they said. Anyway, it'll all be in the report. How's yours coming?"

"Just checking it over. I'd like one more night to think it over - you can have it fresh in the morning."

"I appreciate that, Agent Scully. Any word on Agent Mulder's idea of events?"

"None," Scully said. "I'm sure he's hard at work, trying to write it all out before he forgets a single detail."

"I've read a couple of his reports from his previous cases. I don't mind telling you I'm looking forward to his conclusion."

"How do you mean?"

"Only that from what I've read, his reports are intriguing," Landry said. "I've had Deputy Director Skinner on the phone - _twice_. He seems… very _anxious_ to know where you two have been for three days. I said I was sure it would be in your report."

"Well I certainly appreciate you stalling him."

"Stalling..?"

"Giving me time to finish my report," she said neatly.

"Between you and me, A.D. Skinner sounds like he needs a weekend off. Anyway. I'll let you two get some rest. You can fax those reports if you want. Just ask Ronnie on the counter for the number - I'll leave it with her."

"Thank you, Agent Landry. And please thank Deputy Dupuis for looking out for us with the motel and everything. We really appreciate it."

"No trouble, Agent Scully. I'll speak to you tomorrow."

Scully put the phone down and looked around her room. She straightened her fresh t-shirt and deputy uniform trousers, wondering if she cared that all of her underwear was in the sink in the bathroom, awaiting a good hand-wash. She rubbed her hands over her face and let it all go.

Trailing back to the table, she sat and looked at her words, muttering them under her breath as she began to re-read her report for the fourth time.

She huffed and got up, snatching up the pages and the door key. She went out of the room and straight across the corridor. She knocked soundly on the door marked 'eight'. "Mulder?" she called.

There was a pause. Eventually the door opened and Mulder, in a fresh white t-shirt, uniform trousers and bare feet, smiled at her. "Hey."

"Can I come in?"

"Like you have to ask." He stepped back and she wandered inside, finding all of his used clothes in a pile on the floor next to his boots. He closed the door and leant back on it, folding his arms. She flumped on the edge of his bed and lifted the report pages in front of her, waving them slightly in disgust. "Like that, is it?" he asked. He crossed the room and sat down a discreet distance to her right. "Yeah. I had trouble with some of my report, too."

"This is _crazy_ , Mulder. If we write what we experienced, we'll be fired and locked up in a government psych ward. If we _don't_ write what we experienced, we'll be fired for going AWOL from a very urgent case."

"Yeah, I got a whole 'damned if we do, damned if we don't' vibe from my report, too."

She huffed and sagged harder into the bed. "I just feel like… there's no winning this one." She looked up at him. "Wait - which bit are _you_ having trouble with?"

He considered for a moment. "The bit about not knowing how to work _Põ Tolo_ into it."

"What?"

"Where McGivers said she was from - _Põ Tolo_ ," he said.

"And where is that exactly? Sounds spanish."

"It's Sirius B, Scully. The Dogon people believe that people from the 'stars' came down five thousand years ago and gave them all maps and directions to _Põ Tolo_ in the sky."

"Really," she said, feeling her frustration slide away, to be replaced with whimsical amusement.

"Yeah. The strange thing is, they knew five thousand years ago that the Earth orbited the sun. And they have maps of the satellites of Jupiter _and_ the rings of Saturn - invisible to the naked eye - and they had them thousands of years before modern science 'discovered' them."

"And you believe that? That 'people from the stars' gave these maps of other planets to a relatively primitive culture?"

"Uh… yeah," he shrugged.

"Why? Why would they do that? What could they have hoped to achieve?" she pressed.

He smiled at her in amused appreciation. "I don't know, Scully. I'd have to ask one of them. Maybe I could have asked Marla McGivers. Maybe she'd have known."

"You're saying you believe she was one of these people?"

He waved a hand out in helplessness as his mouth worked without sound. Scully continued to study him. He made his hand drop. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

"I want… I just want some kind of answer - one that makes sense to me," she protested. She flumped, wholly resigned.

"I was thinking…" he began. Scully looked up at him and he met her defeated gaze. "I mean… McGivers was very sorry for everything. In the end she helped us, even though it was against everything she was supposed to be doing, everything she was supposed to be working on."

"So she _says_. We may never know who she really was," Scully said.

"Well hopefully there'll be something in that sample of what she left behind."

"Yeah… the techs Landry asked to assess it and send it to Washington are saying it's not carbon-based," Scully mused. "They're calling it 'space dust'."

Mulder grinned, his gaze firmly on the wall across the room from them. "How about that."

"As for where that leaves us…" She looked around the room.

"As for where that leaves us," he said, "McGivers said the experiment had given us everything we'd wanted, and then it was taken away again."

"Yeah." She paused to think it over. Then she looked up at him. "So what did you want, Mulder?"

"I wanted the peluda, and to be able to prove it was real. But the peluda _wasn't_ real, so that's what was taken away from me." He turned his head down to study her. "What did _you_ want?"

"I don't know." She lifted the report pages and opened her fingers deliberately, letting them _swish-swish_ to the carpet. "I think I got close to it a few times, but it was taken away before I knew what it was, what I really wanted."

He yawned, then ran a hand through his hair. "Well… maybe one day you'll figure it out."

"Maybe. Maybe I'll just give up chasing it."

"You know what else I realised?" he asked.

She put her hands behind her and shuffled up his bed, lying out flat on her back and sighing in relief. "What, Mulder?"

He twisted to look at her. Her eyes were closed. "Well," he said slowly. Then he cleared his throat. "McGivers - Marla McGivers."

"You mean Landry's clone?" she said, her eyes still shut. "She's _identical_ , Mulder, and yet she's still alive. Does that mean McGivers copied her somehow?"

"Do you believe everything we saw and did - that it was all real?" he asked seriously.

"Well… if it was, then McGivers was a physical clone of Landry. If it wasn't… then perhaps we just saw a photo of Landry in the report Skinner gave us before we got on the plane - and we used the memory of what she looked like to give McGivers a face."

"One, you're admitting that you think we were in some 'game' for three days, and therefore McGivers was real in some way, and she somehow cloned herself a Landry—"

"We have physical evidence that we were drugged for three days, Mulder."

"That doesn't prove where or by whom."

She frowned. "And two?"

"Two, assuming all of 'one' is true, why did we pick the same face for McGivers in the shared hallucination or game or whatever it was?" he asked. "And her photo wasn't _in_ the files Skinner gave us before we got on the plane - the name of the agent wasn't in there, either."

"So explain how we both think that Landry is identical to McGivers."

"I don't know. Maybe it's like this Ronnie on the desk looking exactly like Rose, who we saw here before. Maybe it's like this motel being identical, and the Sheriff's Office, too. I don't know what to make of this whole thing, Scully, but… I think I believe it all happened as we saw it. Everything we met was a copy, every _one_ we met was… a clone of someone who was real." He paused. "And there's something else. It's probably not important, but… what if it is?"

"Well?" she asked, rather wearily.

"I've heard the name 'Marla McGivers' before. Do you want to know where?"

"Surprise me."

" _Star Trek_."

"Mulder."

"No, listen. Marla McGivers was a lieutenant - a historian - who helped Kirk revive Khan. She fell in love with him, eventually left the Enterprise with him so they could start a new life together." He shrugged. "I just wondered if that was important in some way. Maybe it means all blue-blooded aliens are _Star Trek_ fans. Maybe it was just a random name."

Scully's eyes opened and she glared at the ceiling. "This character on the TV show… She left her own people to be with someone her crew didn't approve of?"

"Yeah," he said, twisting back round to her. "Why?"

"What happened to them?"

"Scully, I am shocked and appalled at your lack of _Star Trek_ knowledge," he teased.

"What _happened_ to them?"

"Well they were exiled - she went with Khan, ended up his wife. But they paid the price for it."

"So that's what she meant," Scully muttered.

"What?"

"Just something she said about… why she was a watcher here."

"So you _do_ believe she was real - and an alien, and a watcher?" Mulder grinned.

Scully's eyes closed. "I'll debate that in the morning." She yawned. "Right now I'm too tired to move."

"Well we _were_ drugged for like three days."

"I should…" She yawned. "I should get back to my room."

"I won't judge you if you fall asleep right there. Feel free to crash out. I won't tell." He pushed himself up to stand. He walked around to her side of the bed and stretched over her to pull the blankets free of the empty side. Hauling them across, he wrapped the top one round her and tucked her in.

She didn't even open her eyes. "Thank you," she muttered, turning on her left side to be more comfortable.

He stood back, looked around the room, and then went around the other side of the bed. Stretching out on the empty side of the mattress, his hands behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling for a long time. Eventually he felt his eyes, gritty with weariness, irritate him to the point of needing a rub. The cool of the room got to him and he stood up, pulled all the sheets from the bed, and climbed under them in his purloined deputy's trousers and t-shirt.

The room was silent, warming, relaxed.

Something in Scully made her eyes twitch. Some tiny, inner voice told her something was amiss, that something needed to change. Abruptly she heard a rustle and felt a mass move behind her, close enough for her to expect a touch. There was nothing. She freed a hand from the blanket and searched behind her to find his wrist. She pulled on it and he shuffled up behind her, bringing a welcome wall of heat to her back, and all down the backs of her legs. She folded his arm over her and snuggled down into the blankets, as he collapsed in exhaustion against her back. "I think I figured out what I wanted after all," she murmured.

"Hmm."

"Mulder?" Scully asked, so slowly, so wearily, he would have been forgiven for thinking she was talking in her sleep.

"Yes, Scully."

"When we get back to the office…"

"Yes, Scully?"

"Peludas. They go in the 'never again' box."

" _Yes_ , Scully."

The rest was warm, comfortable silence.

.

 **FIN**

.

* * *

 _And that's a wrap. Thanks for reading right to the end, folks! It's all for you, you reading readers who read!_

 _Hope the Star Trek chapter names didn't give it away too early. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your traffic to these pages, your interest, your reading, and the time you take to leave a comment or review. You keep me going._

 _Till the next story - thanks. Good night, good luck, and live long and prosper. :)_


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